A friend of mine and I were debating about the kind of agency we would create. “Agencies are broken, we all know that.” Yes, we do. But what caused them to break? and is it within our power to fix? Can we fix existing ones? or has the model shifted so rapidly that the only way to fix the problem to burn Rome?

Unfortunately I am a proponent of the latter. Burn the whole agency model. It is not only broken but preventing us from moving forward. Itsits there as a wounded animal sucking resources and life from everything around it. Like the nemesis in an action film. Just die already!

But, alas, there are several limiting factors to burning Rome.

People. There is a dearth of talent, true talent in the ad business. Making the situation worse is that there is even a bigger whole client side. We have spent the past 20 years of innovation and pushing boundaries, and replaced it with myopic statisticians who so concentrate on the miniscule that they slowly drive their brand to inequity. Corporations reward the luddite. The one who does not rock the boat. The lack of risk taker, and that modality is carried down the line. Agencies have turned from creative run powerhouses, to consultant run idiocracies. 

People with no talent can get paid more being big shot somewhere else – same as with brands, when we scooped those people that did not fit into the little force fit mold of most major corporations.

Once again, with the CMO shift we will have to wait for the next generation. Oh, you many have one of two pop up, but every-time a new agency concept gets traction, one of the big holding companies swoops in, inserts process, their process, the talent leaves and the agency is shell of what it was.

That is because, fundamentally we do not have a real good scalable model. The business, the core of the business is people. Why anyone invests in the advertising business is beyond me. Invest in models that are scalable, not personality driven.

We may find ways to replace people with technology when it comes to analytic systems, do more with less. We may even be able to replace some production people with automated systems, but there are two positions which will always require people (at least for the foreseeable future) 1. Creatives 2. Account. We may get to a system where media becomes automated to the extent that people become almost unnecessary, but THAT is the problem. The stakes are so high for some brands that it is the differences that help push them over the hill, that human touch, huiman insight in media that makes it a success. 

If you already have a brand, and you want to make your current process as efficient as possible, technology can do that. You can tweak, modify and extract every last drop from that stone, but in the end you’ll have the most efficiently running stone possible. The problem? The stone gets eroded over time. Its a friggen stone. If you start with a stone, you end up with a smoother stone, but you do not change the game. You do not advance. You erode.

The miracle of advertising is the ability to grow the stone, to give you more leeway and inefficiency to play with, to gamble and not have it hurt you, to reinvest. But the miracle of advertising requires people. If you want to move the curve of your rock you need human insight. Actually it only requires ONE great mind with ONE great insight, (think of them as the scriptwriter) but in order to get at that result, we have to start with a lot of great minds to get that insight. (the writers group) And more often than not those minds miss terribly. 

You see, advertising has become an industry run by committee. It has become a chaos product subject to a law of normalization. Warning: Math Tangent! In any chaotic system with multiple variable inputs that system normalizes.

Any system becomes more stable with more variable inputs added to the same construct because the variability of the individual inputs tend to be less variable than one  input.

When you gather a group of people together and say think outside the box you are defeating the actual purpose of doing so. Brainstorming sessions were obviously created by someone who had the creativity of a stone. You see, they want to be creative so badly, want their idea be the one that comes out of committee so they can get the promotion. It’s the only way they can.

Why do you think “consultants” at the top consulting firms always organize these exercises? It makes them look good.

They are merely exercises an agency uses to keep the client placated into believing they have input. If you are really using your clients as genuine idea generation then you are a hopelessly lost agency.

Which brings me to the point. How do you structure an agency in this new paradigm? You let it form organically, but not chaotically. Most smaller agencies are formed as constructs to the functions that their first couple clients need. That is because they can only afford to hire on an as needed basis.

Stop trying to grow too quickly. Expand slowly. Do not take on clients that are more than 20% of your total billing. It will not serve your long term goals. You need to be able to tell the client, and client, to “fuck off” and take their money. If you are not able to do that, then your agency is a slave to your clients, and you are not free to do the work that will push our industry forward.

You, have become what I abhor, a leech on the ad industry. An extractor from the system. Just die already!