Let’s Kill Marketing Buzzwords. All But One.

You can almost guarantee, with the same certainty that death and taxes exist, 2016 will bring with it some new marketing buzzwords that agency folk will use with wild abandon to dazzle clients and confuse their non-industry friends. 

Now I don’t know were this annual onslaught of disposable wordplay originates from but I’d like to think they are created by bookish hermits squirrelled away in rooms hidden behind a secret door in the bowels of agencies. These purveyors of marketing poetry must spend countless weeks scouring a well-thumbed Thesaurus looking for all possible word combinations they hope will amaze their management overlords so as their agency can be first to use it and to gloat when they see other agencies starting to adopt it. “We were first, we were first” will be heard from the boardroom more than once along with vigorous backslaps and mandatory high fives. 

But alas, I fear the truth is less romantic than my version. It’s more than likely some agency people sat around a meeting table sipping bad office coffee and eating sandwiches leftover from a previous client presentation while tossing around catchy phrases during a hurried one-hour brainstorm session, it had to be hurried due to it being non-billable. And just before they wrap the meeting the quiet intern sitting in the corner will chime in and bingo, we have our new buzzword.

The cool new term is then rolled out at client meetings with much pomp and ceremony and presented with tap dancing skills that would leave Fred Astaire in awe and put a tear in the corner of Ginger Rogers’ eye.

The goal is to reassure the client that the agency knows what is needed in 2016, they have this new buzzword, and with that in hand the client can breath a sigh of relief as everything will now be okay.

“Call off the hounds, Smithers, we’re not firing the agency today, they have the magic word.” Mr. Burns

But all of this belief in the latest buzzword is just plain codswallop. (Now there’s a fun word, it should be used more.)

If you want a buzzword to hang your hat on try this one – idea.

It’s timeless, has been proven time and time again, and will never grow old. So let’s just use that.

What wins for clients and their brands is smart thinking and great ideas. Period.

Agencies need to re-discover a passion for ideas if they want to move forward and regain creative status in the eyes of clients. Simply being executional service providers who jump onto the latest buzzword is a slippery slope to be on.

One of the additional benefits of being in the business of ideas is that you can and will (if you allow the right kind of environment to grow in-house) have the ability to create your own I.P., products, or brands, hence potentially creating another revenue stream that alleviates the pressure of solely being reliant on client fees and retainers.

Will it be easy? Of course not, but nothing great, exciting, or worthwhile ever is. If there were a chairlift going up Mount Everest would it still have the same appeal?

Imagine how a client may look at an agency that understands more of their world; as in the agency now has a product they too are trying to market. There would be some empathy one would think, from both sides. 

Now some may say – “We’re an agency, that’s not what we do.” Okay, fair comment, but remember this - times change, industries change, people change, and the world changes.

AOR (Agency Of Record) relationships seem to be heading in the same direction as U-matic tape machines, Bromide cameras, and regular long boozy lunches (they still happen occasionally, thankfully, but nowhere near enough…but I digress). 

Creative Is As Creative Does.

Every year Fast Company releases a list of the 100 Most Creative People In Business and it’s a sad reflection on the “creative agency business” that only two people made the list last year. The same goes for their list of the Most Innovative Companies, very few are from the agency world, again usually around two.

How are we supposed to convince clients “we” are the ones with the big ideas, and I am not talking a one-off Superbowl ad, I’m talking about the ideas that make an impact longer than 30 seconds and become a part of people’s day-to-day lives? And I’m also not talking about a project for charity that picks up a Cannes Lion and then is all but forgotten about by the agency once the rosé hangover has subsided.

Not one social media platform, app innovation or the like came from a creative agency. There’s been nothing like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or Snapchat “created” by a “creative agency”. Why is that?

New York film maker and YouTube success, Casey Neistat, released his own innovative video app called BEME last year. Here's a guy who used to shoot TV commercials for agencies and now he is innovating faster and better than agencies. You can read about Casey's app here. 

My fear is that soon clients will start turning to those innovators, the people that come up with the new ideas that connect and engage with an audience, for their marketing and creative communication solutions. It could soon become a “cut out the middle man/woman” (as in agencies) situation. In fact, the tech companies are now one of the biggest destinations for agency staff that are jumping off the rudderless ships they were on. If that is not a red flag to a bull for upper agency management then I don’t know what is.

Ideas Come To Those Who Think.

Don’t wait for briefs, pitches or even clients, just start creating and doing. Put some gray matter to the grindstone.

But you need to act on ideas, there’s no point having a notepad or a file on your laptop full of great thinking if nothing is being done with it. Actions speak louder than words.

Having been in upper management of some major holding company owned agencies I do realize for many this humble pursuit of ideas is near to impossible to do as the time sheet is the holy grail and billable hours dictate what someone can do and what they need to be doing to fill up those 40 hours.

For those of you caught in that system I unfortunately have no real solution, any changes need to come from the top, and getting a high level committee to agree to some non-billable creative pursuits will not be easy. As the saying goes – You don’t see statues of committees for a reason.

Independence Day

For all you others, the independents, you have the ability to get your creative on and make stuff happen. Yes I know, you still have to account for hours, but I am sure, from my experience, that it will be much easier to do and manage if everyone is on-board.

Set aside time to get back to generating ideas, start developing ideas for an app, maybe develop your own add-on product for an iPhone, or create a clothing label, how about starting a YouTube channel (yes they generate revenue too), or whatever comes to mind. Just start generating ideas and bringing them to life. 

It doesn’t have to be prefect from the beginning, learn from the tech start-ups that launch in Beta and refine as they go. Ideas evolve and grow.

“Perfect is the enemy of good” – Voltaire

Beyond creating potential additional revenue you may also see something else in the agency that can also help improve the bottom line, and that is better morale.

If people chose to work in this business and they are truly passionate about their careers they should be excited about new creative challenges, no matter what side of the desk they sit on. Happy staff makes a happy agency and most smart clients want to work with an agency full of passionate and happy people. 

A recent survey showed that 70% of employees at low-morale agencies are looking for a new job; you can see that article here. 

Another survey asked freelance creative people which companies they would give up their freedom to work for. 195 companies made the list and out of the top 65 only 14 were agencies. You can read about that here.

If management of agencies don’t make some changes now history will make the changes for them. 

As I wrote on January 1 in my first post of the year, 2016 has to be the year, well for me at least, to do things differently and re-focus on ideas and testing the waters with them and seeing what can be made a reality and what was just a fun experiment. If some fail (and they will) so be it, but you have to be willing to fail if you’re intent on changing the way things are done.

And right there is an important word – intent. Not a buzzword.

Without intent nothing happens. Right now independent creative companies and creative individuals have the perfect opportunity to think fresh, to innovate, and to blaze new trails.

More and more clients, big and small, are looking for innovation, fresh thinking, proactivity, and immediacy. We live in a social media “now” world, many clients and their brands need less processes, and more ideas.

The big shops are bogged down with bureaucracy, systems, processes, multi-tier management structures, and enough roadblocks to stop a NASCAR race.

So, why not be a David amidst the Goliath’s? Start hurling a few idea stones; you never know which ones may just hit a target or two (or three). You don’t have to take aim at the Goliath’s; they have their own battles to deal with. Clients/brands and your own ideas should be what you’re focused on.

And even if you miss quite a few targets (and you will) you’ll be working up some serious idea strength and you will be punching above your weight with more ease before you know it.

? 2016 Rodd Chant ??