New Chapter

There are plenty of agencies who say they create “ideas,” not “ads.”
They say.
Some do. Some don’t.

My gut tells me the ones who say it, but who can’t quite manage it, have a few things working against them:

• Client tendencies to only understand traditional executions.
• Client bureaucracy.
• Agency tendencies to only think in traditional forms.
• Agency bureaucracy.

Saatchi says it’s an idea company. And I’m sure the top thinkers at Saatchi think of Saatchi that way. But Saatchi is big. Real big. And bureaucratic. And has big bureaucratic clients. And by the time the ideas are filtered through all that bureaucracy, they pretty much always come out as ads. Worse, they come out as ads we’ve seen before.

I buy most of the cluetrain.
As time moves, I’ll buy more.
But I also believe in advertising. I just don’t think it’s going to remain static in form for much longer. And I don’t believe that the new forms that emerge will have long life spans, either. Evolution will accelerate, until it reaches…whatever it’s going to reach.

Not everyone is ready for a ride on the cluetrain just yet. At least, not exclusively. Which leaves a lot of stuff that still has to be sold traditionally. Time will change that, but business needs now. Now needs nimble, flexible, and inventive.

Bureaucracy filters all that out.

The new chapter, I think, will be written by smaller and mid-sized advertisers who are more flexible – who understand that different is the only safe alternative, and the only way to compete against “big” and “same”. The people who help them write that new chapter are going to be in agencies who share the same characteristics.

tags: Advertising Marketing