How can people who’ve honed their skills with passion and vision
contribute to the next phase of humanity instead of say, make another
KFC ad? What we do now will determine our future.

History is not a continuum. Now’s a time when history is showing its
joints and bending. But which way?

I read this
post on BBHLabs and I think a lot of people agree
that ad agencies are no longer necessary but we’re all afraid because
we’ll all be out of work (well I haven’t been at an ad agency since 2006
but they are still a big part of my life) if we admit that everything
we’re doing now can not be stuffed under the umbrella of ad agency.
Agency means facilitator. We need a collective of people that work
together to facilitate, mediate when companies fall into a rut, or find
they have a problem they can’t solve internally. Managers of
development. Managers of story. Managers of communication. That is not
exactly an advertisement agency. Ads are great (for the sake of
argument). Maybe we’ll always have ads.  And there will be teams that
make them. But I can imagine ad-making being more what it was in the old
days: A copy guy and a designer type tweaking away at the typeface and
the design of the thing, some ad-tastic team making more of those funny
clever Superbowl ads. Ha ha, what a gas!  But those guys come later. Waaay later in the process.
So lets put ‘ads’ over there for now.

Then lets look at what agencies have tried to do the last few years.
They’ve tried to pretend they are movie producers, product designers,
art curators, publicists, gurus of the future, pundits, yet they still
maintain a media buying dept, a media planning department, a ‘creative’
department focusing on those awards, brand planners ad testing and
gluing up those research holes — and the account people tap tap tapping
away at their cubicles. I think it’s pretty bombastic to claim to do it
all and yet still be an AD agency. It’s hard to continue along a path
where part of your job is to convince the client they don’t know their
business yet you don’t really take the time to step into their shoes in
any real way and think beyond the old model. Most ad agencies ARE the
old model but they pretend not to be. How can they tell their client to
do something that they’re not even doing themselves: REALLY getting
their grubby fingers off the old rule book and throwing that thing out.

Based on what I’ve done when I have felt most useful at an agency
(when I’ve convinced management to let me do my thing), this is what I
imagine we could do if we were to start fresh.  It would go something
like this:

1. Workshop the client. Act as
   therapist, teacher, nurturer. Facilitate them telling YOU about the
   company they work for. Clock in real hours understanding what it’s like
   to be in THEIR skin and go to work every day. Why do they do what they
   do? Have they thought about it? Maybe yes, maybe no.
2. Stimulate the clients imagination. The VP of sales,
   the receptionist, the sales team, the CFO, the CEO, the guy or gal who
   does payroll, the brand manager, the engineers, the guys in operations,
   shipping, you get the picture, get people from top, bottom, side to side
   to come in and roll up their sleeves in smallish groups cutting through
   hierarchy. Be disarming. Take the corporate speak out of the picture.
   Find out whats under the surface. Do an ethnography on THEM, the CLIENT.
   After all, its them that you are helping and one day you’ll be gone.
   You are not creating an ad for them, you are making their business
   better.
3. Consumer ethnography. Who’s their target? Great. Is
   that all? Are you sure? Is that really the target? The only target? Now
   that you’ve workshopped the hell out of the client, you probably can
   respond to this with authority. Now go out there and be a part of the
   target for your dear client and witness without prejudice how people
   think and behave surrounding the brand, the category (or categories),
   the lifestyle surrounding that category, and insights into culture that
   at first glance seem to have NOTHING to do with the category or the
   brand but are so important in society that they might be a part of the
   brand that you never before imagined. Like social networking. Like
   multitasking. When those were big surprises way back when. Go in without
   arrogance and see what you didn’t already know.  Don’t assume because
   it makes an ass out of you and me.
4. Strategy Time. Well you’ve been doing it all along,
   haven’t you if you’ve been THIS involved and this much not a bullshit
   artist. You now know: your client is this. Your consumer is that. Throw
   out the rule book that says you have to write a unique selling
   proposition, that big idea one sentence thing that will determine the
   360 approach of the brand blah blah blah. Those are for stable cultures
   and certain times. THIS IS NOT ONE OF THEM. Does your mom have a unique
   selling proposition? Does your best friend? Brand is the word for the
   public image of a company. The associations. These associations are part
   intangible, emotional and part functional. The company is the main
   thing here; What does it do for people. Why do they buy it. Why do they
   need it. Why do they trust it. And once you determine that, have it chat
   away about the things its best at. Like a person.  Dear Brand: be
   yourself. Know who you want to talk to about it and be articulate! Be
   fun. Be engaging. But don’t be so fixed and immutable for crissakes.
5. Make. I think you have to be an entrepreneur to be
   doing this job now. Not just a spin doctor. You have to be a problem
   solver because superfluous businesses are liable to die. You’ve sussed
   out the problem, challenge, opportunity. And since you’re not an ad
   agency, the solution could be to make a new product or service, a movie,
   get into a different business that nobody ever thought of. One that
   fits strategically. One that works operationally. One that solves other
   company problems and considers revenue, not just the consulting fee you
   pocket until the next pitch. A manager to manage the creative capital
   and developmental aspect of a business in conjunction with operations,
   management, sales, and distribution. (or similar, of course, depending
   on the business we’re talking about).
6. Chat away. What am I doing? I’m blogging. A few
   minutes ago, I was tweeting. A few minutes before that I was in the
   office kitchen brainstorming. Earlier today I was on the phone with the
   U.K. Yesterday I was on Huffington Post commenting. This morning I was
   texting, Facebooking, and emailing an invitation to Mexican night at my
   house. And I was checking out the FB groups I’ve recently joined.  My
   boyfriend, meanwhile, is making a movie about his experience in
   Barcelona and he’s climbing over fences to take pictures of areas people
   don’t normally get to see. He’s a location scout. I am (he is, you are)
   communicating, spreading, reading, participating, commenting. The
   company you work with needs to all of that too. All products are content
   and content is ever flowing. Chat away. Strategically.
7. Revise, repeat. A woman’s work is never done. And a
   brand is never done. An agency with the smorgasbord of stories and
   storytelling techniques at its fingertips, or wily enough to hunt them
   down, is what a company needs as an advocate to help them find the right
   venue for communicating and the right products and services to offer.

-Chauncey Zalkin

twitter.com/girlonthestreet and www.girlonthestreet.com/whatwomenmake