Kill classic! This is how the future advertising agency looks like.
Yeah, we all know: The classic advertising agency is dead.
New times need new ideas. Let´s collect some.
Let´s break the routine.
1) How would you like to work?
2) How should your office look like?
(Do you want to work in an office anyway?
Where would you like to work if you could choose?)
3) How else can we present our work to the client?
(Aren´t client presentations basically the same since 50 years?
Aren´t most of them dead boring?)
4) How would you name your agency?
5) Will we still need photographers/directors to shoot our campaigns?
Why don´t we do that by ourselves?
6) Will there still be copywriter-artdirector-teams working together?
What about other combinations?
7) ...
8) ...
9) ...
Sascha
New times need new ideas. Let´s collect some.
Let´s break the routine.
1) How would you like to work?
2) How should your office look like?
(Do you want to work in an office anyway?
Where would you like to work if you could choose?)
3) How else can we present our work to the client?
(Aren´t client presentations basically the same since 50 years?
Aren´t most of them dead boring?)
4) How would you name your agency?
5) Will we still need photographers/directors to shoot our campaigns?
Why don´t we do that by ourselves?
6) Will there still be copywriter-artdirector-teams working together?
What about other combinations?
7) ...
8) ...
9) ...
Sascha
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by philip chudy on -
I worked in Germany for some time before moving on 7 years ago. I worked as a photographer and 3D CG artist. At that I invested in the latest digital technology (well ahead of the curve) and spent a considerable amount of time learning to be expert in the use of it. I was pleased to offer cutting edge services to ad agencies and design groups. But I found a deal of disinterest, mainly because these groups considered it to be their destiny to bring everything in house and to do everything themselves. "Why should we work with you when we could just go out and buy hardware/software and just do it ourselves" was a frequent answer.
The search for excellence in creative work was not as compelling (well, in the vast majority of cases it was not compelling at all) as reaching for some nirvana, in which agencies would be freed from the risk of deadly creative contamination from 3rd party creative services. If only they could do it all themselves, in nice in-house family style groups, there would be a new dawn and their work would blindingly brilliant (no longer just the ‘same old same old thing’, that is)
I tried to make the point a number of times, to agency executives that “you can afford a broom and cleaning materials and the technology is not hard to master. Why is it then that you do not clean the floors in your office every evening?" I received some very strange looks. As far I can read, what I was meant to understand that if being an artist was good enough for me, how could I possibly think that it would not be far far better for them? I got the impression that I was expected to be very relieved because - even though I had perfected my technique and trained my eye over many years - merely by their buying some new tin boxes in cardboard boxes, they could ‘save me the trouble of having to work so hard to provide excellent services’ . Never more would it be necessary for me to anguish creatively, or stay up late at night - the weight would be gone from my back for ever. I should say that they did not in the main, have these advanced technical creative capabilities in tow - but the mere promise of getting them soon was sufficient to make their eyes shine, and for them to look at me with perhaps the same pity I felt when I looked at their own portfolios.
I have the impression that in the last few years, that there has finally been a boom in good work at the creative deep end of German advertising, so I wonder if I was wrong all along about these trends. Is all of this the result of agencies reaching their Valhalla with in-house creative services or drastic agency restructuring. I have no idea, but, Sascha , it would be good to hear how it looks from where you are.
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Permalink Reply by Sascha Hanke on -
good morning philip!
I read your reply with big interest, because you commented on the most provocative question of mine.
well in germany nothing has really changed during the last 7 years in terms of idea execution.
sure, CGI photography made a huge step forward. that´s why big worldwide shootings don´t happen
that often anymore. more and more clients request money- and time-saving studio composings.
and some bigger agencies tried to implement creative services like online/interactive,
offline film cutting suites and so on.
this was mainly because of financial reasons.
and to underline the "integrated" full service thinking in front of the client.
but for me this is just make-up.
most of the agencies (probably not only in germany) still work in the same way they did in 1998.
a considerable step forward was made by crispin porter + bogusky introducing their integrated production
department as seen on creativity-online.com.
they didn´t just buy the machines (which you described and which sounds so stupid).
they employed the experts and artists behind as well.
that is at least an honest approach. and it seems to be quite successful.
of course this means a huge financial investment and demands a new way of thinking
from everybody working in such an agency. but isn´t it also very exciting?
in the end, so why got german advertising better over the last years?
I think we rediscovered our humour, we learned a lot from other countries
and we learned that today good advertising should entertain more than anything else.
we probably got that from the US.
have a nice sunday,
sascha
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Permalink Reply by Abdol Rahim Mirza on
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How you want to kill the classics of whatever activity, if all schools (Worldwide/over the history) have had one typical method of teaching?
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Permalink Reply by philip chudy on
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Hi Abdol
Although propaganda has been around for as long as our species have had language, advertising agencies are a pretty modern phenomena. Have they been around for long enough to even define their modus operandi as ‘classic’? I suppose, but I think there is still room for a range of alternative approaches (at least in terms how the 'creative' work is sourced how media is placed).
Sascha mentions the integrated production department for Crispin Porter. I can see how the promise of full ‘control’ is tempting at first - and the bean counters will love it - but as with genes, a lack of creative diversity could cost them more long term. Germany is far more homogeneous socially than the US for example and as such there are fewer requirements for variety and innovation.
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Permalink Reply by Mario Soavi on
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Sasha and all,
please note one single point: in 20 years' time all the customers changed their business model and structure, while agencies are still the same as at the beginning of the '80th. Unfortunately we even face some cases where the technological adoption of some of our customers is better than ours and put them in a more advanced position than ours.
IMHO it's not a problem of where to work or how to present our work: either we find a way to make people understand that creativity is not a commodity, is not anybody could have, or we are going to perish as professional group. Please keep in mind our customers already can access customizable spots and ads with reduced prices, they can hire low-cost agencies operating in less-costly countries, and so on.
One point is clear: we have to cut prices, even if we have to maintain our way of producing (copy+art is a mandatory team, photographers and director are mandatory, ...). On the other hand we must link our work more with results (commercial or ...), so that we can demonstrate our efficacy and keep people asking for our competencies.
Jm2c.
Mario
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Permalink Reply by Sascha Hanke on
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hey mario,
I agree that probably the majority of our customers changed their business model and structure,
but did their way of thinking about communication change as well? for sure, they all demand
integrated stuff, online ideas, 360. but at the end still lot´s of them ask: "and how will my double-
page-ad look like?" I think it is our responsibility to inspire them and lead them into the future.
and will you do that without killing ingrained ways of working in e.g. your agency?
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Sasha,
you're right for the single ad.
But do you need a 30-50 people agency for that ad or is it better to have the right couple of copy+art (that could be chosen on the type of ad you want) and to demand all the rest to the right planner? If we could succeed to serve in the second way it could be a success for us, as the media planners are starting to serve as creative too (with very poor results).
But there's not only the single ad, and that ad is always a part of a much more complicated way of promoting business, where other competencies are involved: strategy, marketing, logistics, and even design and vision. All those are not sufficiently present in nowaday agencies, and that's the main reason why there couldn't be a direct correspondance between the integrated adv agencies and their customers, national and intornational.
I see you grab competencies depending on the customer needs; I do the same, working on an international basis. If we could keep low our rates and choose the right team for the right customer, perhaps we could be the correct response to the problem.
Mario
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Sascha, job market, mostly requires whatever diploma. I can accept academic qualification in certain jobs as Doctors, Engineers, Scientists, and so on although the most players in the yard are only certificate bearers!
In the real life, you can see Mr. Bill Gates had only limited academic awards. He only recruits those open/creative minded peoples and never mind to invest lots of money on them. The result is this empire of Microsoft. The others did not added any new thing, but only copy & pasty (What MSN created) and give it a new name for the same feature. Please read the most recent article here,
http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9874922-56.html?part=rss&subj=...
The common manner worldwide, the doorkeeper respects himself as the BOSS of the organization, and you want to kill the classics?
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Permalink Reply by Lane Casteix on -
Herein is the problem: "creativity is not a commodity" Mario Soavi. Now, how do we get that message across to our clients who view all things as commodities to be purchased at the lowest price? The agency of the future must adjust somehow to this new world.
Lane
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Permalink Reply by philip chudy on
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Well it is a comodity really but it is one which the client is bound to pay not just with cash but also in ways which are less than conventional currency.
High on the list of 'payment' is that the client offer a genuinely good product, that they 'pay' in terms of respecting their prospective customers, their advertising agency and so on.
But if, of all people, those in the advertising business cannot communicate a need for regular business people to 'de-commodify' creativity, who else is going to do that?.
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Lane,
let me put it this way. I have a big customer, a multi-annual international project on the go. For that I needed to team up five people, two of which are specialized in the customer sector, two in the PR and one for creativity (he needs to take the issue and invent the story to tell, from information gathered from the customer and from the specialized profs). We all met and decided each one had to produce a personal first document for building up the first draft of the project proposal: we set a deadline for that.
One of the six didn't send his document, I needed to remind the deadline and received it with much of the content totally out-of-focus with what we discussed on our prior meeting: the person was the one appointed for creativity.
My question is: how can I demostrate creativity is the core of our business when I have to manage with such an attitude, which is not positive towards the project but is only following "the standard way of advertising" (to advertise you have to go on TV: creativity is for that)?
As the person I appointed is one of the best in the national market (so, it's not a quality leak) and I trust creativity must be central in communication, my current attitude on the project is to calculate the overall cost of it (direct and indirect, which is the time I have to invest to refocus the person on the right issues) and ask myself if it's worthwhile. One of the possible alternatives is to shop for someone else, but in this case I know I'm going to hire less quality.
My conclusion is: if the "production method" (copy+art, ...) is still valid, the agencies have to change their "final product" (which cannot automatically be the spot). And doing so, the agencies must find a way to keep their margins, much lower in all the products that aren't spots. The agencies must stop thinking the "commision" way, as that was a good way to include and value creativity, but no more customer is paying for it.
Creativity is not a commodity but our customers think it is such, mainly because we didn't yet found an alternative and shareable way to evaluate it.
Mario
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Philip, last few minutes I was watching ABC’s Good Morning America, where there was a topic; EARN to LEARN, does good payment helps to get high grades? Sorry, TVs does not allow us to comment back. Otherwise, I had to ask them: How to earn before learn? If the money only is the subject, so many resources offer high online degrees for just few amounts.
You see that, most creative/innovative minded peoples yet were low graded, or contained lack school lives (?).
In our Area, we can watch so many International Satellite TVs in its own language. I never come to creative ideas yet. Even online sites are reachable in their local languages. The English version of some sites only brought what they want to show us. Isn’t it similar to school live, teach us only what they want?
High graded students are those who perform a good system of Copy & Pasty.
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