The Dilemma
With every pitch and every project, across the short term and the long, advertising agencies must grapple with an existential conundrum.?
It’s comes down to one simple question: “Good Sh*t, or Bullsh*t”.
At the core of the dilemma is whether agencies should prioritize doing smart, effective creativity, or succumb to the allure of glittery buzzwords and formulaic processes that lack substance.
Superficially, this might look like a no-brainer - why wouldn’t an agency always try and do the best thing?
But the choice is not as clear-cut as it might seem - much like the classic game theory scenario the Prisoner's Dilemma - it pits short-term gains against long-term value.
The Prisoner's Dilemma: A Quick Primer
In the traditional Prisoner's Dilemma, two individuals are arrested for a crime and interrogated separately. Each prisoner faces a choice: betray the other by confessing, or remain silent.
The catch is that the outcome for each prisoner depends on the decision of the other. If both stay silent, they receive a minor punishment. If one confesses while the other remains silent, the confessor goes free while the silent one receives a harsh sentence.
However, if both confess, they both receive a moderate punishment.
The rational choice for each prisoner is actually to betray, leading to a worse collective outcome than if they both stayed silent.
The Agency's Dilemma: Good Sh*t vs. Bull Sh*t
In the context of advertising, agencies face a similar dilemma.
On one hand, they could focus on doing the smart, strategically driven work that genuinely leads to results. This involves open-minded strategic thinking, lateral creativity, and a long-term approach.
On the other hand, there’s the temptation to lean into glittery buzzwords, rote formulas, and sleight of hand to sell work that may not move the needle but can be impressive in the room.
Now if every agency was committed to the smart, substantive approach, the industry as a whole would benefit. Brands would see better results, trust in agencies would grow, and the overall quality of advertising would improve.
But in a world where the dazzle of shiny objects and the latest jargon often has as good, or even better odds of winning out in the room, the agency that plays it smart may lose out to the one that promises quick wins with buzzwords and surface-level strategies.
The Temptation to Blag it
Just as in the Prisoner's Dilemma, the temptation to defect, to choose the path of least resistance and play into the buzzword-driven process game, is strong.
It’s a path that offers immediate gratification: the client is happy, the agency gets paid, and everything moves forward with minimal friction.
Not only that, but the bullsh*t route has one monumentally huge advantage for the agencies’ bottom line: It’s cheap.
Sit a flashy leadership team atop a pyramid of mediocrity, fly them out to new business meetings, deliver a well rehearsed but vapid presentation, then pull the bait and switch - flashy leadership team jets off to recycle the vapid presso and the day to day team are dropped in to follow a formulaic process that doesn’t work.
But this comes at a cost. Over time, the emptiness of such strategies becomes apparent. Dull campaigns fall flat, audiences tune out, and brands start to see through the fa?ade.
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Because a fa?ade is precisely what it is, and most egregiously of all - away from client ears there are plenty of people who will openly tell you that they think ‘it’s all just smoke and mirrors’ - something that, due to that ‘it’s just not cricket’ British fixation on honour, has never sat well with me.
The Game is Rigged (but needn’t be)
Don’t hate the player though, hate the game. The choice to embrace bullsh*t - as I’ve said - is a logical one.
The structure of the industry encourages agencies to play a game of smoke and mirrors, often at the expense of true creativity and effectiveness. The system is, in many ways, rigged, but it doesn't have to stay that way.
One of the biggest problems is the “Ta-Dah!” moment style of presentation, where agencies unveil their work as a grand, finely polished idea.?
This leaves little room for the building blocks of effective work: collaboration and iteration.
It turns pitches into a performance, where winning the client’s approval in the room becomes more important than delivering work that will really work.
For many clients, the procurement department plays a significant role in selecting and managing agency partners. Unfortunately, a focus on cost over quality makes the bullsh*t approach all the more enticing.
After all, one big advantage of bullsh*t is that it is far cheaper than doing a proper job.
The increasing focus on short-term metrics, such as immediate ROI, click-through rates, and social media engagement, encourages agencies to prioritize tactics that generate quick, visible results, even if they aren’t aligned with long-term brand building.
This short-termism is often driven by clients who are under immense pressure to demonstrate immediate success to stakeholders. I get it - this is a hard spot to be in.
An agency with integrity will help their clients to argue for the crucial importance of the long term, not engage in the calamitous practice of pushing bottom funnel metrics for a couple of years while the health of the brand withers away to nothing.
If an agency spends more time talking about their processes than their people, you can guarantee they’re knee deep in the bullsh*t school of thought.
In many ways the whole edifice of bullsh*t rests on the biggest lie of all - that there exists some substitute for talent.
The most important question clients should be asking their agencies is a simple one, it’s a question that will empower clients to see through all the smoke and mirrors, and the question is this:
“How does your agency attract the brightest and most creative people in the world, and how will you use them to help my business?”