Figure out what the client wants, do it, and get paid

I have always believed that post India’s economic liberalization circa 1993, creativity in advertising took a turn for the worse.

The big holding companies gobbled up the local hotshops and brought along with them their cookie-cutter global branding ideas.

For years I kept these thoughts to myself for fear that I would be seen as an old codger.

Now Steve Pearlstien of The Washington Post holds the network agencies responsible for the shoddy work we see these days in advertising.

Snippets from his “What Happened To Creative in Advertising?":

In the search for what went wrong, one path leads to industry consolidation.

Starting in the early 1980s, the storied independent agencies that bore the names of their witty and intelligent founders -- Ogilvy & Mather, Young & Rubicam, J. Walter Thompson and Doyle Dane Bernbach -- were bought up by big holding companies.

In practice, however, things haven't exactly worked out as planned, including for investors, whose annual returns have ranged from mediocre to awful.

Creative-services firms have proven ill-suited to the demands of public shareholders and analysts, with their fixation on quarterly earnings targets and double-digit growth. The emphasis on cost-cutting and meeting financial goals dampened the enthusiasm for risk-taking at the heart of creative advertising.

"The mantra became 'Figure out what the client wants, do it, and get paid,' " explains Lee Clow, the legendary creative director at Chiat/Day. And because agencies are generally paid on the basis of fixed retainers, hourly billing rates and media commissions, there is no financial difference between delivering a blockbuster ad and delivering a mediocre one.


How true. Happily, this may be about to change.

More of that in Steve’s follow up article here.