Ad Agencies: Prisoners of a Creative Past

quotA creative agency needs to operate like an ant colonyquot declared Kevin Roberts former CEO of Saatchi ampamp Saatchi quotwhere every ant knows its job and has the freedom to do it As long as we hire and inspire the right people to do the right thing amp8230 our agency should grow and our creativity should flourishquotActivist CEOs are not needed amp160Belief in creativity is allimportant amp160quotAnything is possiblequot goes the Saatchi ampamp Saatchi slogan amp160Slogans are an important part of antcolony managementThe assumption is that loose management is good for creativityamp160and tight management will kill it amp160quotBain ampamp McKinsey stuff would kill our creative capabilityquot said Roberts quotI believe in hiring Mad Men rather than Math MenquotAgencies did not manage Scopes of Work during the Golden Era and they do not manage them today amp160If they managed or influenced anything in the past it was their clients39 spend on media from which agencies derived a 15 commission amp160Remuneration was exceptionally high relative to agency workloads amp160Why worry if a client asked for additional work They39ll need more media spend and we39ll make more money amp160OutofScope work is a good thing amp160Encourage itToday of course the world is upside down amp160Fee revenues are low and declining workloads are high and rising brands are stagnating agencies are treated dubiously as commodity suppliers employees are paid badly and client relationships are short and uncertainAs for agency senior executives they yearn for the good old days and they continue their loose management practices amp160Does this make sense Should they start to worry about those pesky Scopes of Work amp160Should they spend time reviewing Account Lead performance acting like executives who know something about Peter Drucker39s leadership principles amp160Should they ask What work are we doing for our clients amp160Will the work have a positive effect on brand performance amp160How much work are we doing amp160Are the fees adequate amp160Can we staff the work appropriately amp160If not do we have an action plan to fix our problemsWhat would Bill Bernbach think amp160Here39s a famous Bernbach quote voted in 2011 by DDB as the No 1 quote of the century amp160quotNobody counts the number of ads you run they just remember the impression you makequotamp160 This was certainly appropriate for the Golden Era when money gushed from media commissionsWell agencies still do not count the number of ads they do and money ceased gushing more than a decade ago amp160Is Scope of Work management the kind of quotBain ampamp McKinsey stuffquot that kills creative capability amp160Does that explain why agency CEOs are allergic to counting the number and type of ads and negotiating growing rather than declining fees for their growing workloads amp160There must be a reason for this SOW allergy since the failure to be paid for growing workloads is illogicalBernbach said some less famous things that may be more relevant than his observation that no one counts ads amp160quotI fear all the sins we may commit in the name of 39creativity39 I fear that we may be entering an age of phoniesquotAgencies are committing sins in the name of creativity amp160They are prisoners of a creative past when money took care of itself Hands off management is wrong and suicidalThe good old days are gone permanently amp160The challenge for agency leaders is to find an exit strategy from the prison they are in amp160New management strategies are required for today39s permanently changed circumstancesTime is running outCartoon credit James Stevenson The New Yorker The Cartoon Bank With permission Click the social buttons above or below to share this story with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writers

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Ad Agencies: Prisoners of a Creative Past

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Michael Farmer

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Ad Agencies: Prisoners of a Creative Past

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