The industry has lost its way: It’s time all of us in adland stood up for what is right
From producing sub-standard work to ad fraud to staff exploitation, ad land is in a poor state, says Tobias Wilson. In this guest post, the IAB Singapore chairman urges everyone in the industry to stand up and be counted.
2017 is well underway. Trump is in, the left couldn’t be more at war with the right, with both getting more extreme as the days go by, and I’m pissed off.
Now, I’m no political commentator, but I feel that in the current political climate not even the POTUS can be taken seriously.
So what do I care? Well, I do care. In fact, that’s kind of what got me writing.
Why do I care? Why do I feel responsible?
I mean, it’s ‘not my country’. I played no part in the creation of The President Elect, nor the election of ‘it’. Therefore, I should look the other way and go on with my life, right? Wrong.
In my opinion, it’s this exact mentality that has gotten America and ad-land into the position we’re in, and let’s not even mention Brexit.
For too long, ad-land (read: The Human Race) has been chasing profits, minimizing costs, reducing fees, cutting headcount, promoting substandard talent, producing sub-par work and guess what? It’s all coming to a head.
We’re fuelled by a quick win, blinded by shortsightedness, driven by money and we’re screaming towards the end of our business as we know it, happily. WTF happened to us?
Globally, we’ve got quality issues. Just listen to Marc Pritchard from P&G or Randall Rothenberg from the IAB who both went public this week.
We’ve got quality issues from an ad-fraud perspective, from a reporting perspective, from an overbilling perspective, from an HR and staff exploitation perspective.
We’ve got a tremendous amount of issues. But who’s responsible? Creative is not responsible for media’s issues, ad-tech isn’t responsible for creative’s issues and media is not to blame for ad-tech’s issues.
So, everyone in their collective corners should look the other way and go on with their blind pursuit of their next target and bonus, right?
Hmmmn, notice a pattern here?
So my questions to you at this point, as an ad-person, marketing-person or someone from another industry are thus.
Are you ‘looking the other way’ when you should be standing up for what is right?
If the answer is yes (which I’m guessing it will be for most people, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this), then my second question is: do you care enough about your fellow humans to do anything about it?
Now, more importantly, what exactly are YOU going to do about it??
Take a second, it’s important.
Let’s look at it another way.
Where do you sit on the care x effort matrix?
Now don’t get me wrong. I absolutely adore our industry and believe in it with all my being.
As an industry, we have some of the brightest minds in the world working on solutions for clients every day. We just don’t have enough of them.
We have some of the most forward thinking and respectful clients in the world, just not enough of them.
We have some of the most courageous leaders in the business world, just not enough of them.
The problem with this equation is that the majority tends to rule. In our case, this is leading to mediocrity. Once again, a pattern emerges.
We need to re-calibrate ourselves by understanding where our true value lies.
We must demand fair and reasonable compensation for providing said value instead of relying on old revenue models and complicated jargon, trying to make ourselves ‘sound’ smarter and more valuable than we are, in areas that we aren’t.
Only then will we be able to build businesses that can afford to attract and retain the calibre of talent required to put out the quality of work that will have a demonstrable effect on consumers and therefore the bottom lines of our clients.
I for one believe that we will reinvent ourselves, I mean, if Kodak can bring it back, then ad-land can too.
After all, our jobs depend on it.
Tobias Wilson is chief executive of APD Singapore and chairman of IAB Singapore.
Great piece and call to arms. Saddened to think how many really are listening though.
The few have tarnished the many or with generic networks dominating, perhaps the many have tarnished the few real practitioners.
If you were looking into our industry with fresh Juno-filtered-eyes, I think you’d have to agree Millennials have a few valid skeptical points, like Potus its beyond satire.
A principle isn’t a principle until it costs you money. So if you create a system built around quarterly budgets, then you get what you deserve. Same shit different logo agencies run by money only motivated management, panic-flapping their way to the next financial target.
Add in some greed and lack of scruples and you start to cut corners on staff, pitch for free, throw baffling tech-jargon around in desperation, accept project-by project work, change a few decimal points in media and invent time-wasting processes you can charge clients for.
The trouble is with short-term goals, no one looks at it through the long term filter of clients eyes. If you were a head-of-marketing and you’d had the same bad experience time and again, where would you put your marketing budget? No wonder they’re increasingly taking it in-house.
ReplyReminds me a bit of the sub-prime mortgages and other derivatives that contributed to the GFC and collapses of Lehman Bros et al. An industry chasing a dollar without understanding where it was going or why.
We do indeed need to re-calibrate ourselves by understanding where our true value lies. And that means being open to regulation and being willing to embrace a more transparent model. And not just agencies either: marketers and publishers need to be part of the discussion. The whole ecosystem needs a re-think. Glad we’re now talking about this in the open
ReplyId love to know what the writer of this piece is doing about it apart from the hand wringing here to drive up the social profile and linked in likes.
The whole industry went to shit after the holding company system started to unravel.
Not too long ago, the way it worked was, you showed a client and ad and they bought it because they liked you and trusted you. (Most clients don’t know much about good art, concept or copy which is why they hire us).
Back then you had scammers but you also had people who could solve a real brief with panache. Nowadays, its only the scammers who have risen to the top roles at every agency. Thats been their ticket to the top jobs. So when they tell a client to run something its not very persuasive. Thats when clients bring out the hole committee since they cant trust the scammers.
ReplyAre you serious, man? You live in Singapore. It is the centre of perception and the home of scam ads.
ReplyHave your say