The Great Chicago Agency Fire

Around nine o’clock in the evening on October 8th, 1871, a fire broke out behind 137 DeKoven Street on the southwest side of Chicago.

It was – to put it mildly - a less than opportune time for a fire to alight in the burgeoning metropolis. Only an inch of rain had fallen in the region since early July, leaving the city’s usually muddy ground cracked and fissured. The fire department, already undermanned and underequipped, was exhausted from fighting a spate of other fires over the previous week. And a vicious wind was bearing down on the city from the south, giving rise to dust, debris, and inevitably, the unchecked DeKoven fire’s glowing embers.

Drifting aloft in a shroud of smoke, the embers took flight above a ramshackle sprawl of tarred and shingled roofs, tangled roads, and a byzantine maze of planked wooden sidewalks. And when they descended, the parched surfaces they landed upon lit up like matchsticks.

Thus began the Great Chicago Fire.

If you read Ad Age, skim through the anonymous fingernail biting on Fishbowl, or listen to the hushed whispers of those deemed important enough to still have an office with a door, 2020 is shaping up to be the Chicago agency world’s 1871.

Since the first of the year, several large accounts have left the 606, chasing the heels of the over-sized clown shoes that skedaddled in 2019. Of late, the increasingly abbreviated tenure of the modern day CMO seems to have reserved particular ire for the birthplace of Tony the Tiger. While an oft-cited study claims the average chief marketing executive’s tenure has dipped to 43 months, Chicagoans with livelihoods tied to the health and stability of accounts of increased complexity - like McDonalds - would argue that it’s substantially less.

Some of this well-documented exodus of fees has been offset by recent gains like Army and BofA, and just amounted to a somewhat awkward reshuffling of personnel. But much of it has not, hence the pervasive angst of rank and file thinkers, facilitators, and doers left waiting for the other Allbirds to drop while their CCOs swap keycards in the lobby.

So, what’s the story? The confluence of factors driving the rapid transformation of the agency business doesn’t discriminate by geography.

Well, if you read between the lines of the statements made by executives who have sought stewards for their brands elsewhere, or the direct quotes from the beneficiaries of those moves, there’s a dearth of creativity in Chicago.

And that’s cow.

The Great Chicago Fire burned for three days, cutting a charred swath four miles long and three quarters of mile wide. 90,000 people were left homeless, and an estimated $222,000,000 in property was destroyed. Reasons for the absolute scale of destruction were many, and those already mentioned were compounded by – among other things – a gross miscalculation by the night watchman, a comedy of errors by the fire department, and a train car filled with kerosene. And while it all sounds ripped from a Nicolas Cage movie, it’s the truth.

But complicated truths can be inconvenient, especially when it comes to directing blame. So when a reporter for the Chicago Republican made up a tale that framed a bovine for the blaze, the #fakenews story of Mrs. O’Leary’s kicking cow stuck. The stickiness was aided by the prevailing anti-Irish immigrant sentiment of the era, but that’s an ironic historical parallel best reserved for the echo chambers of other social platforms.

Creativity is subjective, and tends to be judged only after it’s emerged from an American Ninja-style obstacle course of whims, fancies, guardrails, and goalposts. It shines when the incredibly complex array of decision-making mechanisms within that course are functional, competent, and in synch. That’s the complicated truth of the agency business. But when things go awry, much like Mrs. O’Leary’s cow, creativity can be a convenient scapegoat when tangles of issues lie elsewhere.

I won’t pretend to know all of the issues that led to the recent account losses. But I do know that if Chicago’s agency business is going to bounce back, it needs to retake control of its own creative narrative. Like yesterday.

After all, the agency ranked #97 globally in last year’s One Show Rankings just took the Happy Meal away from the shop ranked #11, and said it was because #11 "forgot the power of creativity (or arguably didn’t have much to offer)". Alrighty.

Sure, it’s noble to shrug off cheap shots. But left unchallenged, #fakenews can wreak havoc on a reputation. Poor Katherine O’Leary suffered for 20 years after being unjustly blamed for what her cow didn’t do, and died a heartbroken recluse.

And retaking that narrative should be a breeze.

Want some RTBs?

In terms of creative leadership, Chicago has at least three global chiefs of worldwide agencies in residence, diversity in its ranks, and more lady bosses than ever. Underneath, the bench is deep. And young, emerging talent flocks to the city in droves thanks to the breadth of agencies across all marketing touch points, a thriving portfolio school, and a cost of living that’s substantially less than the coasts. The city’s new mayor views a vibrant creative community as a key component to future metropolitan growth, and has task forces assigned to ensure it. And for those who prefer to keep score with bright shiny objects, Chicago’s annual awards haul is ridiculous. Just tally up the total amount of hardware Ogilvy brought back to Chicago last year. You won’t find an agency without Nike as a client that beats it.

In the aftermath of the Great Chicago Fire, the city rebuilt itself as force to be reckoned with. Creativity sprang from the ashes as if seeded, bringing forth new ideas that would impact architecture, industry, design, and culture the world over. But along with that bloom came an undaunted IDGAF swagger that took those new ideas – like the skyscraper – and got them made. Eventually, that signature confidence would garner the city host rights to the Columbian Exposition in 1893 and – depending upon who you talk to – the infamous Windy City moniker.

Creativity is as ingrained in Chicago’s DNA as seasonal affective disorder, the Inland North American dialect, and an inclination for unhealthy dining options. But so is the swagger of “a tall, bold slugger, set vivid against the little soft cities” that fights for it and sells it. And for those charged with recouping what this ‘cow town’ has lost, history suggests that swagger is something worth remembering.

Let’s get to it.

Skip Tramontana is an ECD/CW that splits time between Chicago and LA.

All criticisms, critiques, and corrections are welcome, and he can be reached at [email protected].

H/T to the colleagues who suggested both additions and cutting at least 500 words. He tried.