Getting Back To Your Agencys Roots
February 17th, 2010 | 
Author: Getting Back To Your Agencys Roots
One generation plants the trees and another gets the shade.
That proverb went through my mind as I walked in the lobby of a recent AAAA conference to see hundreds of copies of AdAge and Adweek laid out across a table. Both magazines featured stories about the Chairman of A Certain Minneapolis Agency lets call them ACMA on the cover lamenting the agencys supposed fall from grace.
I distinctly remember seeing the same guy pictured in the New York Times a few years ago. Back then he was basking in success the recipient of a profile so fawning that my dad called me and said He sounds like a great guy.
So what happened? Although the pumpanddump hype cycle of the business press sells lots of magazines it masks the bigger phenomenon that occurred at ACMA and other agencies who were hot one year and not the next: the tree planters left and shade lovers took over.
For those of you who are students of ad history you know that in the early days ACMA didnt hire wellknown people who had already won creative awards out the yin yang. No the agency made people famous along with the great work reveling in the pseudofame that is creative advertising superstardom. You know who they are. But those people having planted the trees hired a new generation of people content to rest in the shade.
Thats not to say there arent talented hardworking people at wellestablished agencies like ACMA. But somewhere in the hiring and promotion cycles something goes haywire. Ive seen history repeat itself at agencies near and far: people do great work in relative obscurity and get acclaim and fame for themselves and the agency. The agency gets recognized earns a great reputation and starts hiring people whove already earned the fame elsewhere. A sense of entitlement takes over because the shop in essence gets to pick and choose people to work there.
This next generation of leaders decide that since theyve become famous for planting the trees they can show up with a gold or silver shovel in their hands choosing to spend much of their time enjoying the shade. Meanwhile the agency gets too full of itself and loses accounts and people and along comes another group of tree planters at another agency to steal the thunder.
The cycle infects the work as well as the hiring process. Agency HR people and hiring managers look for people with pedigrees the ones whove already planted the treesbut have no real incentive to keep doing so. Inevitably turnover and turmoil ensueand thats news everywhere from Adweek to BusinessWeek to industry blogs as it has been recently at ACMA.
So is your agency full of tree planters or shade lovers?
Ive always believed the best advertising people have an element of hunger and discontent in their personalities. Its rooted in a simple desire to improve upon whats been done before. Which is not the same as being disagreeable or arrogant although those qualities are easily confused. Most people enter the ad biz hungry. But at a certain point after initial success contentedness take over: an impossibly cushy gig a desire for more family life or merely the belief that ones shit doesnt stink. And in the course of an advertising career that contentedness coincides with promotions to managerial positions. Many great Copywriters Art Directors or Account Executives have no business managing other people as Creative Directors or Supervisors.
Look it happens in many fieldstake music. Bands start off young pissed inspired and raw. They make great music sell CDs and get rich. Then theyre not so pissed and inspired anymore. So their subsequent albums arent all that good. But they still have their fans and there are plenty of state fairs for those bands to play at for the rest of their careers.
But in the ad industry were in an age in which the trees are getting cut left and right and new ones are planted all the time. The fame the glory and the reputations that are made can quickly fade. The Web has given rise to a new dimension in marketing ideas thinking and executions. Plus its given our industry a whole new level of transparency. We see new campaigns hear news and call bullshit on poseurs so much faster these days.
To thrive these days agencies should look for the tree planters. Theyre not the ones who ensure an agency can grow strong and healthy provided the roots remain in place.
Dont wait to make sure your agency is doing the right things with the right people. Start digging.
About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Branding. Religion. Censorship. Office politics. Global politics. Sexual politics. And getting drunk during a job interview.
Since 2002 Danny G. a.k.a. Dan Goldgeier has been writing the most provocative advertising columns ever published. They’re all witty thoughtful and probing and a must read for those who want a perspective rarely seen in traditional industry publications.
An Atlantabased copywriter and ad school graduate Dan has worked at shops big and small. He reads incessantly about advertising and is a whiz at rock roll trivia. Learn more about him by visiting his copywriting website or AdColumnist.com the View From The Cheap Seats Archive website. You may also find articles by Danny G at TalentZoo.com.
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