Agencies and Change: Shifts and Whatnot

Piggybacking Sean’s comments on Charles’ article about what the future of the advertising agency holds, in which Charles essentially asserts is the combination of transmedia planning and the black swan theory, combined with a shitload of experimentation and the acceptance of failure.

(But first, a quick aside on failure. It seems like there are two ideas of what failure should be. First, there’s the shotgun approach with the hope that one actually hits the target and becomes the next big viral win. The second is a more scientific, iterative process. I think some people are little too quick to only push quantity at the possible sacrifice of quality, rather than using failure as a tool to increase future chances of success. It’s why strategic planning is becoming so much more important. Although in reality, good failure is probably a little of both)

As I wrote about in the AOC – I believe our collective fate lies in our ability to adapt. It’s the key to experimentation. If you only have a bunch of people used to making television, the likelihood of actual experimentation over just hedging is pretty low. It’s important that we fill up our agencies with people who easily adapt to new ideas, technologies, audiences, or at least have a pretty strong hunger for new information.

So – the new agency will do three things.

1) Shift from the single idea told multiple ways to broader cross media narratives. 
2) Get better at experimentation. 
3) Employ more adaptable people.

But I would also add a few trends that are forcing these changes:

First, we’re finally making the shift away from a consumer culture back to a more participatory one. Or better said, one of doing things rather than just consuming them.

Clay Shirky described this in his discussion of cognitive surplus (what you do when you have nothing to do). He cites a British historian who described the urbanization of society in London in the late 18th century due to the Industrial Revolution. Essentially, people couldn’t handle the shift, so they collectively chose to get shitfaced on gin for a few years instead. But when they adjusted, when they started to wake up from that stupor, that’s when they got all the good parts of the move to the cities. The public libraries, the museums, public education, etc.

Then we began to make our move away from a wholly manufacturing society. With the inception of the 5 day work week, we got something we had never dealt with before, free time. And television was our gin.

But now, the pendulum is swinging back. We’re going back to doing things with our hands, just this time there’s a keyboard and a mouse in between, not necessarily a shovel or a hammer. We’re waking back up. That’s the first shift.

Secondly, telling these broader transmedia narratives requires an audience that gives a shit. The entirety of the point of the tagline, the 360 degree branding, whatever your agency calls it, is the repetition of a single idea forcing its way into the subconscious of an unengaged receptacle. But now that this isn’t really working anymore, we’ve seen the rise of the very buzzy and very misunderstood engagement metric. Most equate this brief attention with caring, but we all know better.

So the second requirement of the new agency is defining purpose. And selling more of X product generally isn’t enough of a purpose. And there simply aren’t many products like iPod’s that have caring already in the bag, so we have to find ways to make this so. And, gasp, this could actually mean using our influence and our money as a force for social good. Dove is a great example of this. It’s brands finding a rallying cry that makes them matter.

And last thing is the shift from brands as a monolithic thing to brands as a more human entity. I think this is mostly an offshoot of number 2, combined with the growth of corporate blogging, the changing nature of customer service, etc. Either way, we expect brands to behave more human, whether that’s by taking on simple human characteristics like empathy and nuance, or by being defined by the sum of the people who represent it.

So that’s it my sort of long winded version of Charles’ future for agencies.

Brands will begin to get better at transmedia narratives and experimentation by becoming more adaptable. And, I believe these changes are happening because the pendulum is swinging back towards participation, the need to make people care and the requirement of brands to have a few manners.

Comments

[Charles Frith]

An excellent expansion on my initial thoughts. I think the thing that I find most disconcerting is that I have no problem including in the media mix a traditional ad/messaging model but I think it could supplement the broader experimental, collaborative, remix potential of transmedia/black swan.

Here's an idea. What if the brief was to take a look at the conversation in new media and create a message that resonated with viewers knowing their converation was the springboard of a traditional ad?

There's so much that could be done although I suspect that as belts tighten we will see little opening for experimentation given that nobody really pushed the envelope when iPods et al were flying off the shelves at a massively profitable rate.

I still think it will take a big FMCG outfit to dump the patronising 'buy my shampoo, and you will be beautiful like me' kind of rubbish they pump out to change the way we work. Or a hip brand that has courage.

[Mike Arauz]

Great advice, Paul.

But, I have to admit, I'm very skeptical of how quickly agencies will be able to integrate these changes. Ironically, I think it's the brands that are adapting more quickly. But, so many agencies (especially the big ones) are built to do things the old way. Doing things the new way means an overhaul of their entire business. It won't be easy, but it certainly is needed.

[Chris Mueller]

Mike, you are right. Some agencies jump the fence and abandon old forms of media as soon as the newest greatest thing is annouced, rather than intregrated the new with the old. The good thing about agencies jumping into the newest media is that they leave wide open gapes which can easily be filled by agencies with a broader approach.

[Karrie Pettit]

Open space that could make some forms of older media more cost effective is the angle that I see.

[paulmcenany]

Charles- Totally agree. I'm not necessarily one to jump on the 'television is dead' bandwagon, just that there's a requirement now to use other media coherently to create at least a more in depth story. I guess the thing that is dead is pouring 100% of your ad dollars into TV and calling it a day.

Mike- I'll join you in your skepticism. In fact, I'm willing to bet that most of them are incapable of transferring over into some new way of business. But I also think that means that the Anomaly's of the world will likely eventually slay big boys.

Chris- I'm not sure what agencies actually ignore all of the old in favor of the new. What I'm advocating for is changing how we use the older media in concert with emerging media, not that we quit using traditional media altogether. It'll be difficult to tell transmedia narratives if we only look at new media to tell them.

Karrie- I guess we'll also have to understand what cost effective means. Either we need to get way better at measuring ROI for both offline and online channels, or we'll still be just trying to maximize impressions for the lowest possible dollar. Still merit to that of course, but mostly as a part of a larger change.

[Sean Howard]

First of all, Paul. Let's be clear. You didn't actually write anything in the AOC. I believe you submitted a picture made with crayons, dude. P.S. It's an awesome picture and I'm having it framed.

I love the TV as gin of the 80's and 90's dude. Rocks my world.

I think that in any business environment (caveat: any business environment not being bailed out by the federal government when it's in trouble) where clients outpace their service providers, some agencies miss out and new ones emerge that see this as an opportunity. Emergent players that will likely be gobbled up by the big players down the road, but in the interim they are able to forge significant gains from a client base (if not revenue) perspective. We could be seeing such an opportunity now.

Interesting in that this all ties in quite nicely with this idea that companies are moving back to meaning. Working on a post about that... Hmmm.

[paulmcenany]

Sean- Okay, you got me there. :) Actually, i wrote a little in the second iteration, which is the one I meant here, asshole.

And on being gobbled up, I think that might be a big maybe in this movement, mainly because of the ownership stakes being taken by companies like anomaly and mother. So maybe it'll make less sense for them to be sold to an omnicom? That's not very well thought through, so I'll leave it there.

And bring it on the post on meaning!

[Sean Howard]

Hmmm. Did we hit a nerve??? ;)

Love the new post you did on failure, dude! Gonna go comment there now.