The best advertising ideas?
Chart via brandchannel reader’s choice 2006
One of the quotes that’s been repeated to me most often was this from Alex Bogusky in a 2004 Money interview:
“Anything and everything is an ad.”
Agencies of all kinds have used this as a rallying cry to expand their product and scope – giving them licence to present ideas which reach deeply into company operations. There’s no doubt that this has created some very smart and impressive collaborations between clients and their agencies, and it’s also raised general awareness of the marketing opportunities created by many different parts of a company’s operations.
It’s also led to heinous presentations (yes I’ve been there) where ignorant agency people present naive and (in some cases) damaging ideas which demonstrate their utter lack of understanding about a client’s business and how that client makes money. This is not terribly surprising. Agency people aren’t trained to run businesses, they are trained to create communications which help to achieve business goals. (Charitably, you could say the same dynamic is on display in the efforts of many clients who attempt to create communications.)
However, this trend has also backfired on the agency world, because if I am a client who realises “everything is an ad” and I can communicate by simply running my business then why should I hire an agency at all?
And in fact, that’s exactly what’s happening. The chart above from brandchannel is an extreme demonstration of this. Of the top 10 brands in their reader’s choice awards for best brands – five of them don’t really use advertising agencies and instead rely upon innovative business ideas to communicate their benefits and values to their customers.
I was reminded of this recently when Brian asked me who I thought was doing interesting stuff. I admit I don’t follow this sort of thing as closely as I should but in my opinion the most interesting advertising ideas aren’t coming from agencies, they’re coming from clients.
Some recent examples from my delicious are:
Redfin a web service that delivers better results than human Realtors.
Leica’s M8, taking the route pioneered by the Linn Sondek, offering a camera that evolves.
Mobile fitting from Japanese optician Megane Top, lets you try glasses on via your phone.
Even the government is getting in on it:
Satlav, find a toilet via your mobile phone, very useful in London.
What differentiates these from the typical ideas that get presented in the last 20 minutes of most agency presentations is that they make money for the company first and communicate second. It’s this shift in emphasis that most agencies don’t understand.
Rather than creating “communications objects” that help to grow a client’s business, agencies who champion the idea that “everything is an ad” should instead be helping to magnify and extend the communication and marketing effects of the client’s own business objects. This is a pretty unpopular perspective in creative and production departments because it means that you start with the client’s idea rather than starting with something created from scratch. Perhaps this is is why most agencies aren’t advocating it.