Why does everything in our industry have to be so black or white? You’re a planner, a creative, a media or an account person? You’re an ad agency, digital agency, media agency, PR or a communications agency? The future is bright? We're all going to die? Blah, blah, blah, boring, boring, boring.
I posted this yesterday in response to this and there seems to be loads of other posts recently such as this, this and this which the comments go on to argue who is essentially the best in 'advertising'. But I'm starting to get fed up with how insular, petty and finger pointing everything is getting - in the blogosphere at least. We all seem to be very good at talking about who has the right to do what and who deserves to be the most loved in the industry. Ahhh, helllloooo (insert camp hand gesture). What does the client want? Do they really give a rat's ass whether or not a creative, planner, account man or even a programmer came up with the bloody idea? If that is indeed what they think they buy from an agency anyway?
I'm worried that clients will just get sick of all the agency bollocks, inflated costs and go and bring it in house or hire consultants, creative communications thinkers or creative generalists, whatever you want to call them. Why shouldn't they if it's cheaper, quicker and arguably just as good? At least in their opinion, and to be honest that is what really matters? What's going to be left? All the thinking and even the doing will be done in house and agencies will be mere facilitators. You can see signs of it happening now. Don't quote me, but i'm sure Channel 4, ITV and Innocent have all brought disciplines in house if I recall. I've also just finished working on a pitch with a communications consultant that the client has hired to work with the agencies. He's been a nice guy, but it's a bit too prescriptive. The final outcome is essentially his idea - which has turned out OK, but not as good as it could have been if all disciplines could have collaborated and this isn't just my view.
I'm not suggesting that people like Russell and John would ever work with agencies in this way, but you can see it happening elsewhere. Why deal with the agency self appreciation society when you can work on your own interesting projects directly with brands? It's getting a bit, if you want something done, go and do it yourself. Do we really want to lose the best people to clients, irrespective of the discipline, because they can't get the job done? Is this really the world we want to live in? Then you find jobs like this going!
Again I'm probably being naive, drawing on my own short experiences and stating the obvious, but shouldn't we work in a way that allows us to simply get the job done and in my opinion enjoy doing it? I'm being petulant, but what do clients want/expect from agencies nowadays? Perhaps we should ask these questions rather than debating who deserves the crown of creative genius?
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