Interesting post on how the end of conflict is killing advertising
I agree with what he’s saying, but there are so many other factors involved:
1. Money. Of course people in advertising have always wanted it, but now it is the sole imperative for the vast majority of decision makers in the industry. The rise of the holding companies, who only tolerate creativity as a means to a financial end, has stifled those parts of the business where the magic happens. You need a bit of indulgent wiggle room to let talent breathe, but that is a grey area that is impossible to quantify. As a result, the leash is let out only so far and the ads stay just that bit safer.
2. Vicious circles. …And when the ads get a bit safer, they get a bit safer than that, then a bit safer still and on and on… If the gold standard of Ker-azy Kreativity is 20% duller than last year, then most agencies will work another 20% below that. Risks cost cash, so let’s have no more of the pesky things.
3. Globalisation. The more people you aim at, the less accurate your aim. If you have to hit 500,000,000 people who speak fifty different languages and have infinite cultural differences between them, one message will manage a 6/10 reaction from most of them but nothing more. But now, thanks to that financial imperative, consolidation and globalisation is where it’s at. Otherwise the shareholders might get a penny less in the dividend and the man at the top of the enormous corporation might earn a seven figure bonus instead of eight.
4. The talent drain. Either out of the country, out of the industry, many of the most creative people no longer see advertising as a job that will allow them to express themselves in a way that is properly fulfilling. If you spent your day making Drugstore, Surfer or Cog, you’d rightly feel pretty pleased with yourself and would happily pour every ounce of your thinking into the next ad opportunity. But now it seems pretty obvious that great ads are much fewer and further between (partly due to budget cuts). In addition, we now have excellent people working in the industry who get their creative kicks outside it. They know there is no chance of greatness in the day job, so they pour skill and intelligence that they would once have used for ads into some other project. And the ads get worse, and the circle gets more and more vicious.
5. The downgrading of creative status: relatively far less pay is one thing (in real terms, top creatives are paid 8 times less than they were in the eighties), but now CDs are mere employees, hired by the financially-minded people higher up the chain to produce something, anything that they can charge for. Is it good, or is it great? Who knows and who cares, as long as the money is coming in. Go Compare is a massive success, so why beat ourselves up trying to make Sony Balls? Why indeed…
So some fear of conflict might be a factor, but it’s a small part of a bigger story.
I could add to your Money, and Globalization points – clients don’t want to spend $ for creative.
Big corporations now have global systems – you go, you enter your password, you enter key words – what you want to advertise, and BANG! The system spits out prints, billboards, brochures – everything. It’s amazing! They don’t need advertising agencies anymore + the computer never argues.
P.S. Sad but precise post though
All true. Let’s not forget too, that although conflict might lead to better work (I happen to believe this for what it’s worth) clients don’t always like it.
So if you’re client, why put up with the conflict of working with an opinionated, strident agency, when you could work with the bunch of happy-clappy ‘collaborators’ down the road who will invite you into their ‘work sessions’ and give you a tinfoil hat like theirs, then take it up the shitter when you make the ideas worse?
There was a time when input from the client was often constructive because they were intelligent people. These days clients are just shiny suited, low IQ’d yes men with a diploma in “marketing” from Nowheresville Polythechnic, who are trained by the previous generation of shiny suited thickos. There was a time when clients were intelligent people. They’re not now. Now they are thick, bitter, vainglorious, hubristic, shitheads.
Martin Sorrell killed the ad industry.
Sir Hegarty does an amazing job of explaining the rise of the nanny state, the death of working class politics, the acceptance of a respectful and tolerant society that has led to fear and loathing of new or critical thinking.
That is not to say there are not pockets of resistance. Or that I am not optimistic about the future.
But that’s the point.
Everyone in advertising is afraid to change or go against those factors because they fear conflict.
There’s something else: clients.
‘Marketing’ is now a big employer. And that means it needs many more marketing people (is it now the default degree choice?).
All those people cannot be brilliant. So there’s a lot more mediocrity around than there used to be.
Furthermore, the lust for safety extends beyond holding companies to all those mediocre marketing people. Their lack of vision for their brand is proportionately opposite to the total clarity they have about their job security. Why take risks?
There’s something else about clients. They crave complicated problems. The more complicated the problem, the cleverer they will look when they solve it. So all problems must be as complicated as possible. And if it isn’t make it so.
Hence very complicated briefs. Hence the current rash of ‘mood tape’ advertising. And so on….
I blame the clients, more than I blame the holding companies….they’re only supplying what is being demanded.
Up until a couple of years ago, I never used to see ‘Procurement Officers’ in pitches. Now they turn up all the time. Their bonuses are dependent on screwing agencies on cost.
@David
Maybe there is hope. Talked recently to someone senior at a big multinational client. They are totally against employing graduates with ‘we’ve already got the answer’ degrees.
Business Studies? Marketing? Media Studies? All of those are in the bin. What they are looking for are people who wanted to pursue a passion. And obtained a degree in something they were genuinely interested in.
Well that’s what he said they do. Whether that’s what they actually DO do is another thing entirely….
I agree with that David, but proper agencies know the difference between what the client wants and what they need. And they have the balls to confront it.
The problem is when that client knows that they can go down the road and get exactly what they want for from some schmucks who are under pressure from their holding company to rake in whatever income they can.
Clients bear some of the responsibility, no doubt. But agencies have trained them to believe that that behaviour is acceptable by repeatedly doing it.
Hey. Gash. David.
I fucking said that stuff you said with a lot less faux businessy bollcks and more swearing. Where’s my bloody credit. Clients are THE BIGGEST problem. As soon as we all admit it and stop pretending we aren’t their bitches and grow a pair and tell them to cunt off, the sooner we will get some decent advertising on our teles and on our The Internets. And , ironically, the sooner these clients will sell more of their stupid stuff.
You see if I’m right.
‘we now have excellent people working in the industry who get their creative kicks outside it.’
Hard when we’re working 15 hour days and weekends. I think if you want to be creative, you need to get out.
…so it really is all over.
I’ve been clinging on waiting for the pendulum to swing back.
…it’s not going to happen is it…
If it’s swinging back it’s taking its bloody time…
I think it will come back again at some point, but whether that’s in five years or fifty years, who knows?
@Hat
The credit is all yours my sweary friend.
Don’t worry everybody. I’m going to win the euromillions and I’m going to open an agency that doesn’t take any shit off of no one. Me and my stupid friends are going to sit in a stupid office in Soho somewhere and just do stuff we like and if no one wants it they can bugger off. And it won’t matter to us because I’ll have 150 million or whatever it is.
No research, no selling, no planners, no shitheads. Just daft people not taking themselves too seriously, not saying “builds,” not saying “going forwards,” not producing 34 routes. Just one route, probably with a gag in it and if you don’t like it we’ll tell you you’re wrong, giggle like schoolboys and flick v’s behind your back. And a receptionist with massive wazoomos if you know what I mean. Who’s with me?
Oh and clients…when you’re on a con call to the agency, we’re flicking v’s at the stupid pod thing in the middle of the desk whenever you say something cretinous. So quite a lot of the time.
…sounds like Simons Palmer DENTON Clemmow & Johnson circa 1995…(that’s probably why I got fired).
…except the 150 million bit.
What about the receptionist with massive wazoomos if you know what I mean?
Success guaranteed, surely?
Ben, thanks for mentioning my article.
I kind of agree with most of what’s being said.
Hegarty and his peers had immense conviction and confidence in their own creative judgement. They believed they were the experts and they weren’t afraid to remind their clients of that fact. That confidence seems a bit rare on the ground nowadays, for all the reasons you suggest, and fear tends to rule the day.
Somewhere along the way the rules changed. Where once it was acceptable to have a big old fight about the work, now it is not. Where disputes were once resolved over a few beers, now we worry that people will be taken off the account or the AAR called in. Conflict used to be seen as part of the creative development process not it is seen as evidence of a broken relationship.
Which is a shame, because conflict is good. The best ideas are challenging in some way, they create friction and energy.
Hi Phil.
The lack of friction is def a problem, but how that came about is another question, and I think the answer, as almost always, is money.
I never took a payoff in my life, and I’m not gonna start with the likes of you (client).