My second-favourite fable is The Emperor’s New Clothes. I love the innocence and spark of the child who speaks the truth, but the real reason it resonates with me is because it’s such a damning critique of what we call ‘adulting’ and what it instils in most people: the crippling fear of speaking your mind, in order to protect the status quo.
As we enter a new year, a new decade and a set of newer challenges and opportunities as an industry, I want to quit adulting for a moment and speak my truth. Our industry has been in crisis for a while now, with gusts of disruption threatening to blow us over, but we are going to find our way. The path is complex and while the shift to data-driven creativity, personalisation and a consultancy-driven approach is much needed, it doesn’t address the real threat to agencies. We are waging a war to get the best talent and we aren’t winning. And when people are the only distinct advantage an agency has, it’s a war that shakes our very core.
We all know what ails us and what we must do to fix it, but allow me a bit of a rant and to recap. Agencies were places where you did work that shaped culture, changed the world and made decent money too. Today that utopian workplace is the selling line of tech giants and start-ups. As renowned journalist Samuel Scott said, “In the agency world, the pay is low, the conditions are bad and the tech world is like a mythological siren who lures people away with promises of sexy technology and high salaries.”
While I agree that work-life balance and agency pay scales are quite lopsided, I don’t believe that’s the reason why agencies are losing their sheen. Fortunately for us, millennials and Generation Z aren’t afraid of work. (I don’t believe millennials are lazy; I am one myself and it’s a silly generalisation.) What they want and crave is for their work to have impact and for their companies to be driven by a strong purpose. And while it’s true that a tech-startup seems more innovative, agile and entrepreneurial than your typical agency, the real difference is that tech companies are nicely positioned as the answer to the problems you didn’t even know you had. Their multi-billion-dollar valuations are validation of their value to the world. The clincher is the people in tech today are exactly who you want to work for: eccentric, bold geniuses who don’t play by archaic rules and who offer a counterpoint to some of society’s most deep-rooted and fundamental problems.
Agencies have long paid lip service to our unique culture and values, and waxed eloquent about their people and our role in the world. It’s time we start believing it. It’s time we act like it. It’s our time. While purpose, culture and values may mean different things to different folks, the one critical element that we need to rally together on is us as an industry becoming brave again.
Bravery in our ideas, actions, culture and leadership is our secret sauce in this war for talent. Finding new ways to thrive. Being continuously relevant. Being brave matters more than it ever has. Clients and businesses aren’t as brave as they want to be. Seismic shifts in industries and the average tenure of CMOs and CEOs being shorter than ever mean our clients are more risk-averse. Therein lies the opportunity for agencies. Being risk-averse isn’t an option for companies any more. Consumers are demanding that the brands they buy solve problems, stand for something and relieve societal tensions in a divisive world. Who better than agencies, the OG culture shapers, to guide clients to play a greater role in the world while driving growth.
Like all things good and bad, it all starts within. And frankly, we aren’t very brave within. Like other industries, we are in the midst of a perfect storm – the frantic pace of business, relentless pressure from clients, the race to the bottom of the price ladder and an overall feeling of fatigue. The struggle is real. And often that means we compromise. Too many of us settle for good enough and not enough of us are enraged by the mediocre.
How does this reflect in our day-to-day business? It means we over-function in an attempt to do what the client think he wants’, rather than thinking deeply about how to solve the client’s brand and business problems. Being brave has become a pitch-winning tactic, rather than what we do every day for our clients. It means we go from positioning ourselves as a brand’s honest and trusted advisors to being order takers. Adulting in the agency business is unfortunately more closely aligned with fear then telling it like it is so that we all get to a better place.
Our core value has always been and will always be the strength and crafting of our ideas and creativity. However, we have commoditised creativity by making it safe, and thereby ineffective. For creativity to flourish, it needs dollops of idealism, positivity and, yes, bravery. Creativity is our differentiator, our key to growth, our route to fame. Being brave with our work, being brave in our conversations with each other and with clients is not a nice-to-have luxury but the heart and soul of an agency business.
I can speak from personal experience as to what a difference it makes (and I am not brown-nosing or toeing the company line here). At Grey, our North Star is to apply creativity to solve business problems. Solving complex business problems for our clients requires ability but also the right attitude where an informed, contrarian point of view is welcome within the agency and in front of clients. We have made thoughtful, decisive changes in our culture to foster bravery, and the change in our work, energy and business is palpable.
I wanted to work in advertising since I was three years old. Despite all the pitfalls, I still believe agencies can be magical places to change the world. Hopefully in 2020 and beyond we will normalise being brave and attract the brightest, best, most idealistic minds to work with us.
On a side note, my favourite fable is The Wizard of Oz because the simple truth is that everything you seek outside lies within you. That is a story for another article.
