The U.S. Advertising industry is full of a lot of tortoises right now with very few Hares leading us forward. In business and in our "New Marketing Economy" the Hare wins.
The following is the first of FOUR parts collecting my thoughts on how those in advertising need to think and what agencies need to do in order to be successful for our future full of technological convergence and the death of traditional media usage.
The first part is about the roadblocks facing today's typical agency. The second and third parts will consider a new strategic outlook on the internal and external changes we, as agencies, need to make in order to thrive. The fourth part will discuss a few agencies and organizations who are setting themselves up for success.
PART I:
The Ad Industry – Are We Really Innovative?
Advertisers clamor and claim and make noise about innovation and change on a daily basis now. Everyone is posting links, writing blogs (like myself), and sharing their thoughts on what we need to be as an industry. Conference after conference we hear it. We read about it daily online from various sources. You’d think we get it by now, don’t you? Well, very few of us are there. It’s really unfortunate.
Take a look at our peers across both ponds, Atlantic and Pacific. European agencies have truly embraced non-traditional advertising, both online and off. The European market has some of the best examples of using physical mediums, whether it’s billboards, guerilla advertising, or some type of cause marketing.
In Asia, technological convergence is years ahead of us. Just look at how these cultures live with mobile phones or build social networks with their friends. More importantly, look at how they share information (like music). Just study how gaming is integrated into their daily lives. The Asian agencies are years ahead of us in those realms. These countries, in the urban cities, are finding ways to mesh the digital and physical world.
Don’t even get me started when it comes to design. Europe and Asia have us beat there too (Don’t believe me? Compare their car design to ours over the last 15 years).
It’s frustrating at best.
At worst, it’s going to bring down mostly everyone from a huge industry.
That seems a little drastic, I know, but I really don’t think it’s impossible.
It’s not like I’m the first one to say any of this or this is that original of an idea, but that’s what worries me more. I’ve heard these things time and time again from various people from all sorts of agency backgrounds and not much has changed within the industry.
The industry does not embrace change at all. If anything, we are one of the more stagnant industries overall. Until nearly 20 years ago, we had the same mediums to work in. Now that changes moves much faster, we haven’t embraced them at all.
Embracing change is what agencies hang their hat on all the time. Go to any agency’s website and tell me where they don’t talk about “meeting the clients needs…yada yada yada….do whatever it takes….forefront of….one of a kind processes….” The real problem is that agencies just aren’t lean enough. Too many administrators, too few thinkers, tinkerers and passionate leaders. That’s just being blunt I guess.
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