Powzot

All of the recent talk of crowdsourcing (mostly thanks to the launch of Victors and Spoils), the things I’ve written about it (just look back a few posts, you’ll see) and the great two part blog by James Hodgins (hereand here) got me thinking about “the agency of the future.” Make sure you say that in your best 1950s sci-fi movie narrator voice, maybe with a little echo on it so you get that “uture…ture…ure” at the end of it.

So, found memories of bad 1950s sci-fi movies aside, what is the elusive new model for the advertising agency of the digital age? We’ve been discussing it for years… my whole career actually. We have clients that think we’re charging them too much for work that doesn’t do what they want, we have the two major camps “It’s all about the brand” vs “It’s all about the metrics” fighting it out for total domination of the online-o-sphere, and we have this new “crowdsourcing” (more on why I’ve put it in quotes in a second) trying to grab some legitimacy by offering “authenticity” along with low low prices. We have lots of problems, but we don’t have any answers that we’ve been able to agree on.

While thinking about all of this I made a nifty little sketch-chart-note-thing in my sketchbook answering the question “What would my advertising agency look like?” I will spare you my scribbles and chicken scratch (anyone who knows me and has seen my handwriting will tell you, you’re not missing out on seeing the original) and present it here, in clear Helvetica (or Arial if you’re using Windows…you poor Windows users are missing out on all the Helvetica)

The Agency of The Future is:

Small – But takes advantage of the agency network, software start up, or studio model, or some combination of the three. (So it’s small, but part of a large network of small shops, builds innovative things even if there isn’t a commission for them, has groups specifically assigned to a client and it’s needs all the time, or some combination of these to over come it’s smallness, or create smallness in a large organization)

Agile – Partly because of the smallness ( or pockets of smallness that the client interacts with) but mostly because it’s not locked into a static org chart mentality, where everyone has a set job and no one leaves there little box on the chart.

Full of idea people who make things – The days of the art director who comes up with ideas all day and passes them off to production are coming to an end. The computer age has made the tools of production cheap and easy, and having people on staff who don’t make anything is a waste of money. Makers are thinkers and thinkers are makers in the new agency world, even if they aren’t making the things they’re thinking up, they’re making something.

Strategy driven – Bet you didn’t think you’d here the AD say that, huh? In the age of “We’re bringing our account in house” having a solid strategy team working in tandem with strong creative is the only way to continue to be better than an in-house studio. The old “art director & copy writer” team now has to be the “art director, copywriter, strategist, developer” team.

Multimedia – TV is not dead. Newspapers are not dead. Magazines are not dead. When they die you’ll know, because we’ll all stop talking about how they’re dead. While digital (the internet + mobile + all new tech to come) is surely the future, to ignore existing media channels is death. Teams need to be thinking across all available media, and by teams I mean every member of every team.

Social – Account people are great, and we need them. However, they can’t be the sole touchpoint for a client in the agency of the future. Clients today want to be involved more and more in the process, and we need to let them. This is the only way we can avoid the idea that we’re wasting their time and money and giving them work we want to do to make us look good. Clients concerns should be filtered through accounts, sure, but more contact with their whole team is a must.

Distributed – This is where real crowdsourcing comes in. The best team might not be in the same city, or in the same state, or country. That doesn’t make them any less the best team. Not only does telecommuting allow for much lower costs, it allows us to create truly phenomenal creative teams. Maybe your star writer can’t move to the place your star strategist is. Wouldn’t it be better to have the star via video conference on days when it doesn’t matter where the writing is getting done than not have her at all?

Ready to start today – The people are here. The ideas are here. The infrastructure is here. This model can be implemented tomorrow and if I had the resources to do it I would. This is the future, welcome to the internet age, where we use the collective knowledge of our race to find solutions, while our all-star team works from wherever they’re most comfortable, flying to meet a client when necessary, minimizing costs to allow us to charge less and make more, innovating in our spare time and providing a level of service that a large, bureaucratic organization could never even hope to provide. This is the agency of the future…uture….ture….ure…