by Bill Sewell 05/17/09
Nick Law from R/GA delivered an elegant and concise 30 minute keynote presentation explaining the DNA of a modern agency. I’m a sucker for historical background, so I naturally loved how he described the evolution of agencies. He asked a simple question, “What should we be making?”
At it’s core, advertising delivers basic information about a product. Before TV, print ads were simple explanations of product features. Then along came TV and advertising agencies learned that if you interrupt entertainment, you also need to make the product message entertaining. People viewed TV advertising as having a salesperson in your living room delivering pitches in 30, 60 or 90 second blasts. The goal was to make ads memorable enough so consumers would act on the information when they went to the store. The premise works well If you have someone’s time and attention. If you don’t have their attention, you are talking to yourself . . . expensively.
What comes after TV?
The Internet has disrupted the “interrupt and shout” agency model. The problem is that you simply cannot buy someone’s attention online. In fact, with a nearly infinite body of content, the volume of your online voices will remain at 0. Internet media habits are blurring together news, entertainment, community and utility (i.e. email), which is creating expectations of control and participation that the old TV model cannot address.
Are you solving client problems or people problems?
Client problems revolve around selling more product to more people. People problems revolve around the question “how useful is this product?” Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow provides some really simple insight regarding this dichotomy: It’s much easier to advertise great products than crappy ones.
But simple is very different from easy. Catching a bullet in your teeth is simple: just bite down when it arrives. But it’s definitely not easy. At the Clios, I was surprised to learn that the top award winning agencies have both industrial designers and coders that work with brands to make their products, not just their messaging, more relevant. So how do they do this?
The changing ad agency dynamic
Nick Law presented a great chart that seeks to explain the changing dynamic inside the modern ad agency. Imagine that you have two sets of people. And in those sets, two opposing modes emerge. In the first set are people who are strong in storytelling (narrative thinkers). Opposite of the narrative thinkers are people who are good at building platforms (systematic thinkers). In the second set are people who can think of big ideas (conceptual thinkers). And opposite the conceptual people are those who can make amazing visual images (stylists). See Nick’s chart below
Narrative vs. systemic thinkers; conceptualists vs. stylists
A traditional advertisement would be conceived by the creative director and copywriter (narrative and conceptual arenas) and produced by killer production and postproduction companies (narrative and stylistic). Yet, these storytellers are somewhat lost in the new world of creating or influencing products themselves. In this space, you need systematic thinkers who can conceive of a product (i.e. Nike Plus information architect) and can develop it (Nike Plus user interface designer). Ultimately, all these thinkers work together to achieve Seth Godin’s ideal paradigm of great products with real messaging.
Nike+ shows how agencies are transitioning from telling people to “Just do it” to getting people to just “do it.” Nike+ is a digital “platform” that enables individuals to engage running on a deeper level through a combination of music, metrics and community.
The recent Nike Plus Human Race Global 10K competition had 800,000 runners competing in 40 countries with 280,000 virtual competitions. You didn’t need to be present at a location to run. You could run anywhere and challenge anyone to a race. All of this was made possible by a small transceiver in the shoe and a receiver in the iPod that tracks running metrics in real time. This technology platform allowed R/GA to coordinate a global race and help people become healthier for a good cause. Honestly, this is advertising that makes lives better.
Does size matter?
Carl Johnson runs Anomaly, a small ad agency and brand owner. Carl rejects 90% of potential advertisers, choosing instead to remain one-third the size in order to focus on building his own brands. This requires much more work, but it is also much more satisfying in the long term.
For example, Anomaly found a UK makeup expert who has 40 million fans solely based on her advice. By bringing her a line of makeup to sell, she now has a real product and a real customer base of people who trust her. Boom, instant brand.
Modern ad agencies come full circle
Faris Yakob, who has a management consulting background, pointed out that brands now rely on consulting companies, such as McKenzie, to determine the direction of their products. This is opposed to relying on ad agencies that are more in touch with the customer needs. Back in the Mad Men days, agencies were the main source of novel problem solving. Today’s agencies need to return to those roots.
Back to basics, people. Solve problems that real customers have by listening to them. It’s crazy, I know 
Regards,
Bill