Another article in Campaign this week highlights how client companies are going directly to commercials production companies (page 20) and frankly this is no surprise. I think we all agree that ideas can come from anywhere and more often than not great ideas come from pre-prod meetings with a prod house director – something I have blogged about previously in my predictions for 2007. OK not always but – by and large they have done and will continue to do so.
And if you look back over many years of Cannes winners you will see lots of executional or ‘Big Idea’ based (God knows what that really means) advertising with little or no insight at the heart of them. (I shall post some of those I am talking about – going back to ’96 and beyond incidently). So where was the bit the agency really added as value to the client that he/she couldn't buy for themselves?
The more successful agencies have always relied heavily on a great external director to make that iconic piece of film - unless of course we look back at CDP in their heyday - they all went to Hollywood. Is the skill of the creative director merely to latch onto what is culturally hot these days I wonder? Most teams do that exactly – pick the latest piece of music or music video and shove it into any old brand film – usually telecoms these days!
John Webster - the 'Maestro'
It didn’t use to be this way – certainly not in John Webster’s day – he was the one who created culturally iconic characters that still have enormous gravity today. We don’t have people like this anymore in my opinion and we are poorer for it. Ask Paul Feldwick - he'll tell you!
It's all gone formulaic:
Most clients could make perfectly good TV ads these days by picking one of 3 well worn strategies:
1) Show what it feels like to experience the product or service using stereotypical characters with a hint of comedy or visual gag
2) Demonstrate that the brand ‘understands’ its consumers through metaphor (very rare these) or create a character to suggest it.
3) Show us how it is made (every recent memorable car commercial for example).
Now I am not suggesting this is exactly how advertising works (actually I am to an extent) but it means that it is easier to see why agencies could easily become marginalised by smarter clients – or indeed clients that employ planners directly removing the need for the agency to tell it how to sell more stuff. Where is the value that an agency adds exactly if it isn’t in helping a client to sell stuff? It certainly isn’t in the pursuit of making the next telly ad.
The Future?
I predict agency survival will depend on becoming smaller and faster (no account people other than planners and creatives) with direct access to some of the best self-employed artisans in the film and entertainment industry – writers, film makers, editors, journalists, designers, musicians etc with the agency acting as the creative generalist and owner of the brand’s conscience with the sole remit to sell more stuff. If it does this and makes culturally iconic advertising a la Webster – we’ll all be in rude health for the next 10 years.
