A friend of mine is a big fan of Grateful Dead. I guess he is one of the Deadheads. I do not know much about music and even less about Grateful Dead. Therefore, I could not relate to his enthusiasm or his almost fanatical worship of this group.
I saw the above picture with that profound line in this lovely article about Grateful Dead. Everything fell into place. That line and the philosophy that Grateful Dead embodied is a lesson for everyone and every organization. The lesson is simple. Know your core, know your licorice. No one can mess with you.
However, it seems from the mess we create for ourselves, we cannot follow this principle. The temptations are many. Therefore, in our attempt to be all things to all people, we wind up being nothing. Agencies never fail to surprise me. They never stop from preaching to their clients that they should stand for something, a mission, an ideal. Yet when you question these very agencies what they stand for or what their core is, you will receive one of the vaguest answers that will make a politician proud. And like any politician, most agencies stand for only one thing.
(Courtesy) This is based on a true conference call story on the weirdness of pitching and managing creative projects.Not as weird as conference calls themselves.
The futility and stupidity of conference calls. This video makes the point brilliantly and subtly. Nothing good comes out of these 'con-calls'. Is it an ego-trip? It is definitely a masochistic trip for the participants.
(via) I cannot help but love stuff that takes a dig at things that marketers and agencies embrace with the passion of a zealot. The video above might be a spoof but I assure you it is not way off the mark. There are companies that help you get followers, likes, clicks and yes, even views. It is also a well-known fact that there are brands who use the services of these companies (abetted by agencies of dodgy reputation). When a marketer's performance matrix depends on the number of followers, clicks, likes and views acquired, what can you expect.
In my opinion, there is only one viral that matters - 'has the product gone viral?'.
Pixar is what every creative organisation should aspire to become. Not only are their films critically acclaimed but are also mega-commercial successes. In the interview above you get to know the reason why. It is all about leadership and culture. This simple interview covers lot of territory and is at once fascinating and insightful.
For example, take managing ‘creative types’.
In an agency you can see some of the so-called-creative types strutting about like a peacock-on-heat throwing tantrums and in general making life miserable for everyone. Management is completely paralyzed into inaction not knowing how to deal with them. The result is that such behaviour becomes cancerous vitiating the entire atmosphere.
At Pixar, the creative process is viewed as a group effort. While there is room for creative eccentricities, they do not let it affect group dynamics. They simply fire the creative person even though he might be the best. Following is the transcript about that from the interview.
"[At Pixar] there is very high tolerance for eccentricity, very creative, and to the point where some are strange… but there are a small number of people who are socially dysfunctional [and] very creative – we get rid of them. If we don’t have a healthy group then it isn’t going to work. There is this illusion that this person is creative and has all this stuff, well the fact is there are literally thousands of ideas involved in putting something like this together. And the notion of ideas as this singular thing is a fundamental flaw. There are so many ideas that what you need is that group behaving creatively. And the person with the vision I think is unique, there are very few people who have that vision.. but if they are not drawing the best out of people then they will fail.
We will support the leader for as long and as hard as we can, but the thing we can not overcome is if they have lost the crew. It’s when the crew says we are not following that person. We say we are director led, which implies they make all the final decisions, [but] what it means to us is the director has to lead.. and the way we can tell when they are not leading is if people say ‘we are not following’."
Only 3% of traditional agencies excel in digital says this survey across 277 client executives in the US. I shudder to think of the results if a similar survey were to be conducted in India. Not only traditional shops in India do not get digital but also the so-called digital agencies. And I cringe when words like social media are uttered by these agencies (and guru’s alike). In all fairness, the results will be equally disastrous were one to check the level of understanding of the digital medium amongst clients.
Digital is a mirage. It will continue to be so for traditional agencies as long as their idea of digital is creating another profit centre and adding few slides at the time of a business pitch. There is need for considerable investment (‘expense’ in traditional agency lingo) For example, hiring people unique to the discipline like interaction designer, creative technologists and many like them costs money. Since this is not so, almost anyone with an email and Facebook account passes of as a digital expert. I won’t be surprised if my college-going-nephew who is into gaming and downloading God-knows-what (bonus marks for porn) is considered a CD material.
Why is this so?
India being a traditional media market, the creative types and agencies do not see any glory beyond the 30 second commercial and print ads. The client too is looking for a solution that is tried and tested. This coupled with lack of understanding of the new media, creates an inertia that is hard to surmount.
More importantly this lack of understanding has resulted in ‘us vs them’ debate between traditional and digital (emerging media). This debate is completely wrong. Digital is not something alien. What is required is to understand how consumers actually interact with media, brands and one another. Thereafter, design a compelling experience (and communication) by extrapolating it to the real world.
The survey mentioned above says it very well.
"Simply doing social and digital, such as creating Facebook accounts and developing banner ads, isn't going to be enough as marketers get hungrier for better direction -- and results -- in the digital/social world. The agency that can help clients understand how to use social/digital and how to integrate these [media] effectively into more traditional initiatives will, in the end, win the day."
Why is marketing increasingly resembling project management? Why are marketers more interested in ticking-off the boxes in their ‘to-do-list’ rather than exploring new ideas?
The above diagram gives the answer to these questions plaguing the minds of many agency folks and surprisingly marketers too. It clearly explains the complexity or challenges facing today’s marketers. Add softer issues like office politics and personal ambition to this and you get one insecure human being.
Alas, there are very few marketers (experts say less than 3%) who are adept at managing this kaleidoscope. The rest, sadly, are glorified project managers busy making life hell for others. Little wonder that the blog ‘Clients from hell’ draws a heavy traffic and a good laugh :-)
I read this provocative post about the reasons for the decline and fall of the newspaper business in the US. The comments below made by two prominent personalities will strike a chord with anyone who is from the agency business.
Sean Paul Kelley says, “The primary culprit is the same as it is all over the country, in every industry and in government: equity extraction.
Let me explain, in short: when executives expect unrealistic profits of 20% and higher per annum on businesses, something has got to give. It's an unnatural and unsustainable growth rate. For the first ten or so years of a small to medium size company's life? Sure. But when you are 3M, or GE? Unrealistic and ultimately impossible.
That is what has happened to the news industry in America. The excessive obsession with unnaturally high profits has led to a vicious circle of cutting budgets, providing less services, which is then followed by even more drastic cuts.”
Michael Moore puts it across bluntly, “It’s their own greed, their own stupidity,”
Isn’t this true of the agency business, especially in the developed markets?
The unfortunate outcome of all this was that agency operations in booming markets like India were not spared. They were choked to ‘make up’ for the numbers lost in the developed markets. Pay cuts, hiring freeze and mad scramble for all kinds of business were symptoms of this malaise. Managers in the Indian operations of international agency networks were stressed (and stretched) beyond limits, with some of the offices were almost on the verge of a flameout. Now, this is a myopic way to operate.
India, China and other developing countries will continue to be a traditional media market for a long time to come. Read this case of Baidu vs Google if you want to know what I mean. To large corporations that run agency networks, these markets must be to them what California must have been to prospectors during the Gold Rush. However, instead of stripping it bare, they can reap far greater rewards (and bonuses) by nurturing it. Hire more people, train them well and pay good salaries. This is not wishful thinking but an inevitability that agencies will have to follow if they want to survive.
Newspapers in the US might die. Agencies will not, more so in countries like India. The Agency is a business, a thriving one at that. This is because the growth story in markets like India has just begun. Hey, you never know. In the process of making tons of money, they might even produce some decent work!
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
One of my earliest posts talked about new agency models and in that context I mentioned Anomaly as an agency I admire a lot. Anomaly probably embodies the spirit of Emerson’s statement. I will come to the reason shortly.
The really bad times might be over, with even Paul Krugman admitting that the economic downslide was halted just a few paces short of the abyss. I was hoping that these recessionary times would have seen agencies – the big, small and famous – trying to innovate and hopefully ‘cutting a trail’.
You might ask why.
Budgets were getting slashed and in some cases down to zero plus clients were extremely wary about the market conditions and therefore needing guidance. This was the moment for agencies to truly display ‘partnership’ that they always talk about.
However, partnership and innovation was furthest from any agencies mind. Instead they exhorted clients to spend more (‘spending in recession will make your skin glow’), to be more ballsy and so on. Elaborate presentations and case-studies formed a part of this charade. Suddenly agencies developed new found strengths in digital and emerging media, PR and anything that was the flavour of the hour. WTF!
Did they think that clients would fall for this? Unfortunately by these actions, agency folks got tarred uniformly as hustlers.
If only agency folks practiced what they preached they would have earned the respect of the industry. By experimenting with new engagement models, agencies could have created a ‘disruption’ of sorts. And ‘disruption’ is what we urge clients to do.
Anyway, someone is doing it.
I came across this case-study for Lauren Luke (Courtesy: AdScam) Lauren Luke is a range of cosmetics founded by a 27-year old single mother in South Shields, England.
“As co-owners in the By Lauren Luke brand Anomaly has been involved with the careful development of the By Lauren Luke brand, its promotion through PR and the web plus product development and packaging design. It’s part of the move towards intellectual property(IP) that was always part of the plan”
Lauren Luke’s sales are growing rapidly and they haven’t spent a single penny in advertising. Anomaly by being a co-owner took the risk of building a brand from nothing. They are now reaping the profits.
Agency Nil is another ‘disruptive’ agency model with their clients being other agencies. There is no price but instead want what the client thinks the work is worth to be their fee. Agency Nil is not even a year old and it is difficult to hazard a guess as to their prospects. However, Anomaly has been around for nearly 5 years with an impressive body of work.
I think the agency business in India is not in as bad a shape as it is in other markets like US. They should thank their stars that they continue to have a job and are still profitable.
What if the existing agencies decided to experiment with just one client? Like Anomaly and Lauren Luke? Is that asking a lot?
You cannot expect clients to be ballsy when you are not. Leave a trail or else you will be forced to follow one.
