The Last Word: The fall of the global creative empires? Jonathan Kneebone
WHETHER we like it or not—and it seems the vast majority of us don’t—we are at war. And with war comes fear.
Fear is about the biggest brand on the planet right now. Even before war broke out, most of us had experienced it. And if not, it consumed us anyway.
The ‘factual’ 24-hours-a-day news channels are doing their bit to promote it. The ‘fictional’ TV show 24 is rating its socks off because of it. TV ads continue to downplay it which only adds to its growth.
You simply have to visit www.ready.gov—the US government’s website preparing people for counter-attack which sincerely uses the words, “Don’t be afraid” to know the exact opposite is a-happening.
The best way to control people is to make them afraid.
It’s good old-fashioned advertising in action. And you can’t get more old-fashioned than a Procter & Gamble ad.
Head and Shoulders has been making people scared or paranoid about white flakes for years. It seems the US government is now using anthrax in much the same way.
It’s not just fear of war, of course. There’s fear of recession. Fear of obesity. Fear of the seven signs of ageing.
But now the perpetrators of such fears are being subjected to a very real fear themselves. All the way from head office, you can smell their fear.
Big ad agencies are fucked.
For years they’ve pretended to be in the business of creativity. But now it’s becoming clear they’ve been kidding nobody but themselves. They’ve been in business in spite of creativity, not because of it.
Look at London. Boutique agencies such as Mother and Clemmow Hornby Inge are biting massive chunks out of the big boys’ client lists.
Not only that, when a long-standing client has a hot new project—bugger it if they don’t give that to these young upstarts too.
And of course no sooner have the good clients started to embrace the brave new creative brigade than all the creatives worth their salt suddenly want to escape the big networks and start letting their hair down too.
Big agencies are no longer perceived to be “creative” brands.
The proof? There are more creative director vacancy signs now than ever before. And why? Because the big agency bosses know they’ve got more chance of finding weapons of mass destruction than finding creative people of mass talent who would take a job at a multinational agency.
The networks are realising that having pretended for years they’ve supported creativity, now they’re going to have to find unconventional ways to attract genuinely creative people to help them turn things around, let alone survive.
Dave Alberts going to Grey London is an obvious example of an agency taking a significant positive step to confront its fear.
But changing the man in charge is one thing—to really stand a chance agencies must change the way they are structured.
Acting more like talent agencies than ad agencies might be the way forward—using external creative sources, writers, film makers, designers and artists.
The smarter networks are already cottoning on to this.
Of course there’ll be others who’d prefer to cover the windows with plastic sheeting and duct tape, shut the blinds and make themselves a glass of warm condensed milk.
But war or no war, the creative revolution has begun.
And that, at least, is nothing to be afraid of.
Jonathan Kneebone is creative director of The Glue Society.
