Posts Tagged ‘agencies’

The "ayes" have it.

As I mentioned in a Tweet this week, the Season finale of Mad Men, was one of the greatest paeans to the entrepreneurial spirit of the advertising industry that I’ve ever seen in media. Throughout the episode we kept high-fiving each other as great line, after great line kept rolling out of the characters’ mouths. The best line of the night, and the most perfect line I’ve heard uttered about big agencies happened as Roger Sterling and Don Draper were leaving the Sterling Cooper offices after their stealth raid. Sterling looks at the modern, wood paneled reception area with his name on the wall, and the fancy plate glass doors and says to Draper, “When do you think we’ll be back working in a place like this?” Draper responds “I never really wanted to work in a place like this.”

Howls of delight ensued.

Whether you’ve entered the freelance, small-biz, solo-preneur pool voluntarily, or involuntarily, as many have over the past year, that line resonated. Some may say “sour grapes,” but many of the advertising-displaced stayed in the game because we really do love it. It’s fun, interesting, challenging and ever-changing. We just now choose to play the game by our rules, beyond the walls of big agencies with modern reception areas and fancy plate glass doors.

Draper, like many of us has the epiphany that the cool work space, the trendy address, the tricked-out office spaces etc., are not what this business is about. For all of his character flaws, and he has many, the thing I admire about Draper is his absolute commitment to the work. For many of us, it’s all about the work, yet the places we work (or once did) do not share our passion for the work. Rather, they are about rank, privilege, bonuses (though, tough lesson to agency-aspirants: bonuses in agencies are rare. They always cry “bad year/quarter/week/day.” If you seek bonuses, go to work for a “consultancy.” Wall St. can’t really hand them out anymore either. ). The work, and, ultimately, client needs, get lost amidst the noise and superfluity of the agency.

In a previous post I wrote about how the Mad Men creators really nailed something about agency life via the analogy of the mutilated foot. Nineteen sixty three in the show is the doppelganger of the current moment in the business. The creators of the show have shown how and why agencies end up where they do, and have shown what happens to the people who work for them. No doubt, 2010 will show what happens after people have decided that it’s not about the agency, but rather about the work and your clients, and what happens when individuals take charge of their destinies. Mad Men in 2010 should be interesting as well.

Hurtling into the future

This week I presented a late breaking bid for a job in partnership with a creative boutique. Though neither of us got the job (the client went with their soon-to-be-erstwhile-AOR) it was a good experience and laid the groundwork for future collaboration.

During the process we talked about the future on a macro scale in a string of emails. Based on this and other conversations I’ve had, the marketing, communications and PR industry is really on the cusp of something huge. I think the latest financial paroxysms and industry convulsions have opened the eyes of many folks — both clients and marketers — to the potential of working outside of the boundaries of the traditional agency system. Agency life has always been filled with freelancers, solo-practitioners and the like. It’s not a life for everybody and many people say, even now, “I need a full time job, I need the stability.” Stable marketing jobs is one of the funniest oxymorons in the world. As the latest shakeouts at shops prove, stability is a fiction.

Great talent now throngs the market, creating an enormous, virtual, open-source agency filled with folks who now see that the best way to go is your own way, in collaboration with others. Combine a shop like exUrban Inc. that covers brand strategy and production with a creative boutique and you’ve got a virtual agency, custom built for your needs at that time. You could call this model on-demand marketing. This is a good time for marketers, self-employed agency professionals, and the boutique agencies that are now popping up all over. I’m not sure how good it is for the giants (who will certainly persist, just in some as-yet-to-be-determined form). The future is now.

This is the first in a series of posts about interactive producers & interactive production. It reflects my viewpoints after years of doing this work in various agencies, in two cities.

I’ve heard the role of producer described as the most thankless task in an agency. Certainly, there are times when it is. If a project goes well no one really knew you were there and the creative team gets the credit. If the job goes badly, the producer (and also the account team — the most thankless job in an agency if you ask me) takes some major blame. The goal, obviously, is to avoid bad jobs and only deliver good jobs but advertising and marketing being human endeavors, perfection is not always possible.

Good producers go a long way to mitigate the risks inherent in any engagement. The earlier a producer enters the creative process the better they are able to identify the risks and required resources, shape scope and schedule and come to an accurate estimate for execution and delivery of a proposed project. One would think that anybody in an agency, with a certain amount of experience under their belts, could do these things. However, there is a difference between estimates, schedules and staffing plans created by an account person or a creative director and those created by producers. The reason for this is that producers own the work. Account folks own the relationship. Creative directors are brand stewards. The motivations, biases, and pressure affecting each of these players is different and affects their viewpoint on how a job should be executed.

As owner of the work, the producer’s number one job is to tell the truth. This is not to say that account folks and creative directors do not, but the producer, relying on experience, and the maxim to tell the truth can define what he or she thinks should be done, when, by whom and how much it will cost. Once stated, internal negotiations ensue and all parties come to an agreement by which the team, the agency and the client can abide. Once the job is under way, producers (should) roll up their sleeves and get down in the trenches with their teams to ensure successful delivery of the project.

This typically requires in-depth knowledge of every possible project detail, client goals, agency goals, potential risks, and knowledge of team personalities. In the end, this last point is often the most important. The producer is sometimes a task master, though, more often an encouraging friend, a therapist, arbitrator and ombudsman. Working with creatives is a must, and knowing how to do so is very important, but not always apparent. Creatives are driven by different things than others in the business world and they do no react to the same incentives as others. There have been many jobs done in by poor relations between creatives and producers who are not creatively focused.

So what does all of this mean?

In an agency setting:

• Define the role and responsibilities up front to ensure the best match as you staff the need (there is an incredible discrepancy between agencies of how the role is defined and the expectations around it — if they even exist)
• Staff the right type of producer for the job. If it’s a creative deliverable, staff a producer versed in the management of creative projects as opposed to software development, or IT implementation (in which case they will more likely be PMs, more on this in a later post)
• Producers should be brought in as early to assist on a new business pursuit — in this market it’s imperative to define your projects as rigorously as possible, up front, since revenue isn’t flowing like water, and it can get expensive to bring in a producer to fix a job

On the client-side:

• Ask if your project will have a dedicated producer (or PM, depending on the project type)
• Find out how your agency defines the role, and what the agency’s expectations are of this person and how they align with your own
• Ask to meet this person