Time for true radicals

A Time For True RadicalsGareth KayChief Strategy Officer, Associate PartnerGoodby, Silverstein and Partners, San Francisco

Why radical?

Professional Radicals

radical (adj.)thoroughgoing or extreme, especially asregards change from accepted or traditionalforms: a radical change in the policy of acompany.favoring drastic political, economic, orsocial reforms: radical ideas; radical andanarchistic ideologues. Source: Merriam-Webster

radical (adj.)of or going to the root or origin;fundamental: a radical difference Source: Merriam-Webster

Let us be in no doubt,it’s time to be radical

What we’re doing isn’t working “In most cateogries, a brand’s market share is stationary” Brands in 4 out of 5 categories seen as increasingly homogenous Less than 1 in 10 ads seen as different 3 x $ spent on price cutting compared to brand building in CPGSource: Andrew Ehrenberg; Copernicus Consulting; McKinsey

We’re less valued by clients 1 out of 4 clients don’t believe what we do boosts corporate profitability 3 out of 5 clients think we don’t offer good value for money 2 out of 5 think we don’t work well in a team 1 in 10 think we are doing a good job in evolving our services for the digital ageSource: IPA/ISBA; CMO Council 2010

We’re finding it hard to find and retain the best talent Not just low starting salaries but ‘low degree of difficulty’ Spend less on training and development per person than Starbucks spend on their baristas Less than 1 in 2 employees believe their agency is committed to continuous developmentSource: AAAA

Yet, our response seems to be this

6 (hopefully helpful) thoughtsTODAY

“Being realistic isthe most commonly traveled road to mediocrity.” - Will Smith

1Let’s think aboutwhat we can create,not just what ourmuscle memorytells us to make

“Here’s the TV ad,now what’s the problem?”

“The task of any imaginative agency, any creative company, is to understand and serve its client’s business problem. Too often, our business has sliced and diced its tasks in the style of a sub- prime mortgage bundler. A corporate task set by the chief executive, reframed as a comms task by the marketing director, refined by the brand consultancy and reduced by the ad agency to thestuff advertising can do: grow awareness, nurture engagement. Too many links, too indirect and weak a connection between commercial possibilities and creative resolution.” - Laurence Green, Founding Partner of 101

“The further backwardyou can look, the farther forward you can see.” - Winston Churchill

Let’s stop defining ourself by output and start defining ourself by outcome

Let’s be rewardedfor good behavior

hack (n.) the most ingenious and effective solution to a problemSource: Merriam-Webster

2 Stop thinking our work exists in a vacuum

Why is our referencealmost exclusively other ads?

The reality is what wemake exists in culture

“Creative firms of all kinds(including ours) know thatthey must evolve at LEAST as fast as the world is changing around them” - Tom Kelley, IDEO

While culture has changedmassively in the last 60 years,we’ve been massively dumb

Digital ideas orideas for a digital world?

“Advertising can’t have a future if it continues living in the past.” - Steve Henry

Effective ideas demand we create our own culture of continual re-invention

3 No more narcissism

We are narcissists.

We create fake ‘movements’ forthings people don’t care about

“Often our biggest mistakeis believing that, in general, customers care a lot about your brand. They do not. ” - Patrick Barwise

“Nobody reads advertising. People read what they want to read and sometimes it’s an ad.” - Howard Luck Gossage

We need to understand what people are interestedin and work back from there

Build bridges

“We’ve moved from adownloading culture toan uploading culture.” - Charles Vallance

We need to get better at designing for gaps

Put people at the heart of everything we do

4Get out ofthe messagingbusiness

Ideas that do

Stop communicating aproduct and start makingcommunication products

5 Break the tyranny of big

The bigger, the better

The biggest ideas disappear

"Square is elegant. The users flowthrough payment or application has beenreduced to the fewest possible steps; theapp has minimal features. He espouses atremendously attractive belief that goodindustrial design wins customers trust bydisappearing."

What if we thought smallerabout the things we make?

What if we stitched smaller ideas togther to create a long idea?

Google Books Blogspot Youtube Google Google Google Scholar 411 Search Google Docs Organize the world’s information Google and make it Shopping universally accessible and Google useful. labs Chrome Browser Google Maps Google.org Google sketch Fossil fuel ChallengeSource: John Grant, ‘The Brand Innovation Manifesto’

“Like any company we require aprofit to stay in business. But it is not the reason we are in business. Thething that has not changed from day one is the desire to make people think about the world we live in. This is, and always will be, why we are in business.” Dave Hieatt

Photo: Andrew Hovells (aka Northern Planner)

Think small

6 Let’s start learning again

‘From suck to non-suck’ Pixar

Eradicate the pointless quest for perfection

“The show doesn’t go onbecause it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11.30” Lorne Michaels

Minimum viable product

Source: Albion London

Communications R&D

70/20/10

Build a culture ofexperimentation

“If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less” - Gen. Eric Shinseki

Thank you for listening@garethkgplus.to/garethk

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Time for true radicals

by Gareth Kay on Mar 29, 2012

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