Buddhist Marketer

Ad industry decline

Hal Riney opines on the decline of the advertising industry in the January 8, 2007 issue of Adweek:

It is appalling what has happened to the industry in general. Ad people have no faith in the long-term effects of brand image, so the human element is lacking in the work… Advertising has been relegated to middle management…

This is a business built on ability and imagination. You need a magnificent group of creative people and remarkable clients who want to have fun and not just do the same thing.

I’ve given some thought to this over the past few years. And I know that what I’m about to say might be politically incorrect …

What did you just say?!?!

… but I can’t help it.

When I worked at Digitas as a menial grunt working sixty-plus hour weeks for ten grand less than the job before it (whimper), I admired the work of Steve Olderman, a fellow Yale grad who, despite not attending a traditional arts school (he received his Bachelor’s in Engineering in 1963), was then the Chief Creative Officer.

How was it, I thought, that he was able to fashion his career in such a way?

I guarantee you that a Stephen Olderman circa 2007 n’existe pas. The path to becoming a creative director these days is through the halls of SVA, RISD, Pratt, and the like. Or, perhaps you crossover from a different role within an agency — a role like media planning or copywriting.

Except. Well. It’s really hard to get into an agency these days. They require degrees in marketing or advertising. They expect that you know how to operate the metaphorical machinery of the advertising engine. Which is good and fine for executional grunt work. But what about the big picture?

Yale University does not offer a “marketing” or “advertising” degree. It’s a liberal arts institution. It, and places like it, teach you how to think. So that when you encounter a problem — e.g., “How can I shift the brand consciousness in the minds of consumers for this bar of whale fat?” — you understand how to tackle it. These are the kinds of minds that the advertising industry needs, to inject the “human element” of which Hal Riney speaks, to guide clients to consider greatness, to prevent this kind of creative exploration from being “relegated to middle management”.

The problem is that institutionally, it’s nearly impossible for these budding potential great minds, these Stephen Oldermans circa 2007, to get in to the industry. If someone with an engineering degree walked into HR at an agency and said they wanted to be a creative, they’d get laughed at.

But if they do get into one (I was an account person — not exactly the rockstars of an agency, of course), they find themselves surrounded by attendees of what have essentially become vocational schools. Look, I don’t look down my nose on those who learned how to use Comscore or Nielsen Netratings to build a media plan during their undergraduate days. I believe that an honest day’s work is an honest day’s work, and learning a trade to eke yourself to a higher tax bracket is an honorable thing.

But it’s just that. A trade. Learning to build a media plan in your pursuit of an advertising degree is akin to learning to make a widget. It has nothing to do with learning how to think, how to tackle and approach problems in an original and expansive way. Anyone can make a widget. Anyone can build a media plan. Anyone can puke out most of the advertising units rolling in front of our eyeballs these days.

And so the industry, I think, begins to look a bit like it does today. Rife with art school grads who can certainly make something look pretty but lack the ability to inject meaning and substance into the smoke and mirrors. Laden with voc school grads who can pull some placements for women 18-35, single, no children but can’t consider the implications for a psychographic shift or a product positioning tilt. But lacking just the kind of flexible, intellectually-curious, hungry minds that could tackle huge problems and deliver an elegant, unique solution with a depth of consideration and historical relevance that will also positively impact the bottom line.

So I think that Hal Riney’s right in his observations about the ad industry. And I don’t disagree that the obeisance to shareholder value or commodification of everything don’t play important roles. But I also feel that the places from which the industry sources its talent and the ways in which the industry’s recruiters and human resources professionals populate the entry level cubicles also play a very important role.

Just my opinion. And again, not trying to hate on state school grads who majored in advertising. A place for everyone and all. They all make more than me anyway, I’m sure.