Agencies don’t come up with great ideas, people do.

Can bypassing creative agencies really be the answer for the global advertising business?  I’ve seen some pretty amazing, culture-shaping work come out of creative agencies over the last twenty years.  How has that happened? It wasn’t the slick bricks and mortar producing them, it wasn’t the servers being billed to the clients and it certainly wasn’t the holding company structure coming up with them. It was simple: it was the one or two individuals at the heart of the beast that conjured a perfect storm of zeitgeist, culture, product and client ambitions. The ‘dream-makers’ that magnetically chew through the data to arrive at a solution that no one sees until it - wham! - it feels so obvious that it must have been there all along! It’s magic or talent or alchemy - the same quality Messi is blessed with.  

 One image of consultants is they don’t actually do the work but deliver a good rationale for the fees charged. When ‘Chief Monk’ Sorrell starts talking about bypassing agencies and acting more like consultants, this sounds expensive. Brands today need short form content for feeds - with such tiny outputs with corresponding budgets how can the support and infrastructure mirror that of the more traditional high-spend TV ads? The advertising business seems hell bent on changing definitions but, ultimately, aspiring to the same outputs: the car has replaced the horse - and if things don’t start to move, the electric car will replace the combustion engine before there has been any productivity of note!

Technology is enabling us to remix, reinvent and move forward faster in response to these new demands. As the next entrepreneurial generation starts selfie-ing with work colleagues as they onboard into the creative industry there are bringing inherent learnings and storytelling capabilities and some much-needed technological nouse. Their training ground, YouTube, Instagram Stories and Snap, are all creative, narrative-based platforms for bite-sized creative executions - executions that might be more affordable especially if McKinsey et al is not advising on each Snap. How far wrong can a small idea go before it gets buried in digital hubris? Don’t forget, of course, that this is why the idea is required in the first place - to cut through all the noise.

Small strategic teams, selected for their contextual experience and connected with a client using market networks will have a transformational impact without traditionally high price tag. We’re showing it can happen thousands of times a day on Movidiam.  So can you bypass the agency? Yes, but it’s people - with all their wisdom, diversity, experiences and talents - who are central to delivering valuable ideas that, ultimately, shift the bottom line for business.

Technology is remixing every industry and now it’s the advertising business turn.