THIS WEEK: HAS ADVERTISING LOST ITS MOJO?
Dear DOYLE,
I run a Madison Avenue shop and lately I’ve become concerned that the agency, and industry as a whole, is not the same place I joined.?Sure, all businesses have ups and downs, and the people in them too, but I feel we’ve lost the spring in our step and we’re in real danger of becoming… irrelevant.?What do you think??
Penny, New York
I fear you’re correct.?The author wasn’t around in the supposed golden age of advertising, but being a keen student of the game I have read about days gone by and one must draw the same conclusion.?Yes, nostalgia tends to guild things, but I don’t think it’s merely that we’re looking at the past through rose-tinted goggles.?
Speaking with colleagues past and present I believe there are three main areas of malaise –
Ranting may be cathartic but it’s rarely constructive; instead let’s address these issues individually and with some possible solutions.
领英推荐
There’s a bizarre trend at the moment for advertising and marketing companies to hate what pays the bills.?We describe ourselves as anything but what we actually do for a living – when was the last time you read a company proposition that was as clear as we are an advertising/ PR/ media/ etc agency, rather than a culture-shaping collective (or words to that effect)??It’s especially odd that just as we are trying to distance ourselves from the core of our profession a new wave of competitors (management consultants, tech titans, VCs) are moving in, setting the rules of the game and defining what success looks like – with no word from us!?Could you imagine a scenario where the opposite happens??To rectify this, we must be more vocal.?One of the great ironies is that advertising and marketing companies are remarkably bad at promoting themselves; can anyone outside our professional circle name an emblematic business in the same way McKinsey or Goldman Sachs represents much of the reputation of their respective industries??This isn’t merely vanity or ego.?We need big names to promote the expertise of the industry as a whole, so that we are seen as the thought leaders again.?As they say, a rising tide lifts all boats.?
Service sector industries like ours are nothing without the people working in them (Sir Martin Sorrell famously said that the assets in an advertising agency leave in the lift each night), but there are two concerns on this front: we aren’t attracting the best of the best anymore, and there is a brain drain that goes beyond the great resignation.?Advertising and marketing remain a draw for graduates, but anecdotal evidence tells you that our desk doesn’t have the longest queue at the career fayre anymore.?Likewise when reading the trade press and looking around the office you see many people leaving for new pastures.?Why??The causes and solutions for each are likely remarkably similar: we must provide our current and future workers with an intellectually stimulating environment (the work, culture and hours) that makes staff feel empowered, not exploited, as we're hard to beat when firing on all cylinders.?Talking about money is somewhat taboo (certainly in Britain, the author's home country), but it would be remiss to ignore reality: the salaries on offer at all levels in agencies are far, far outstripped by other knowledge based-professions.?Like-for-like salaries may be a stretch but we need to offer compensation in the same ballpark as banks, law firms and tech companies if we are to have a realistic chance of winning back workers.?
When revitalising Apple, Steve Jobs boiled his plan down to three things – great products, great marketing and great distribution – the very best executives recognise the power of what we do, but it has been said that our status and role have diminished over time.?Where we once had the ear of the chief executive many lament that we're now mere handmaidens to the juniors.?Reversing this decline is not impossible however, rather it lies in our hands.?Simply put, we need to start taking the commercial aspect of the job seriously again.?Clients pay us to come up with commercially lucrative solutions that connect with customers to help grow their business – the pictures and words are the means, not the end.?How many around us see their job in these terms??When we go back to basics we’ll quickly find ourselves in the C-suite again.?
Yes, right now we’re suffering a crisis of confidence.?But if we believe in what we do and that we’re the best at doing it, soon again our heads will be held high and we’ll be back where we belong.
Consider this a rallying cry!
DOYLE
NEXT WEEK: OUT WITH THE OLD, IN WITH THE NEW?
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