George Parker: Why the “Agency of the Future” is Destined to be a Pathetic Reflection of the “Agency of the Past”

If you rely on the advertising column in the New York Times to find out who the next big Kahoona is going to be in the ad biz, you will have been less than stunned to read last week about the birth of yet another “Agency of the Future.” This one happens to be a Boulder, Colorado start-up by the somewhat pretentious name of Victors and Spoils. It would appear that this is basically a breakaway group from CP+B. And yes, as you would expect, they are claiming to be a “different kind of agency.”

Oh dear, oh fucking dear, I do wish people would stop spouting shit like this. It seems like only yesterday when JWT was claiming that they were no longer in the ad biz, they had moved on, and had now become the much more impressive sounding, “communications anthropologists.” But, as I said at the time, if I really wanted to know at what particular period in history, our knuckle dragging ancestors had discovered the use of hand tools, I would simply jump into a cab and go up the street to Columbia University. Meantime, could a real advertising agency, please help me sell these dumpster loads of cornflakes?

Victors and Spoils is somewhat naively claiming to be the first agency centered around the hot flavor du jour… Yes, crowdsourcing. Unfortunately, along with most PSFK readers, I can remember at least half a dozen other outfits who’ve made this same claim in the last few months. But no matter, as the world’s first, agency planner, Goebbels once said…“If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe you.” And, what the hell does anyone know anyway? Maybe it will work, because, when is comes to Madison Avenue, I like to paraphrase William Goldman, another of my ancient contemporaries…Who once said…“In Hollywood, no one knows anything about anything.”

My problem with crowdsourcing as an ad agency model, is that it must be ultimately self defeating, as several people have already pointed out when commented on uber-blog AdScam, which means that any client with half a brain will soon come to the realization, that if their agency is relying for its work on people who have no association with the agency…Why does the client need the agency, and all its associated bullshit…Why not deal directly with the content originators?

As far as how the work actually gets produced, a quick read of their extremely amateurish website reveals that out of work creatives will be encouraged to engage in some kind of massive cage match, at the end of which, the winner will get paid (How much is a bit of a mystery!) The losers will be dragged out of the arena to be torn apart by wild beasts! OK, I made that last bit up, but the point is, they will get zilch for their efforts.

Apart from the fact that by utilizing this business model, the management of a “crowdsourcing” agency could clean up while operating out of a call center in Bangladesh, this is a further demonstration that not only the BDA (Big Dumb Agency) model we have grown to hate over the years is doomed, but agencies of all sizes are fucked. We are heading to a great sort out from which good things will hopefully happen; unfortunately a great many bad things will also come about. As practitioners of the black arts, we will all be tarred with the same brush. Clients will be reinforced in their belief we are a bunch of snot nosed, pusillanimous charlatans. But those of us that survive will continue to dazzle the columnists of the New York Times and the ad trades with our latest “Agency of the Future” bullshit.

The one thing you can make book on is that there will always be more agencies of the past than the future. I know, I’ve worked for most of them.

George Parker is the perpetrator of adscam.typepad.com, without doubt, one of the most foul and annoying, piss & vinegar ad blogs on the planet. His new book, The Ubiquitous Persuaders, has just been published by Amazon and is currently setting the ether ablaze. He will continue to relentlessly promote the crap out of it until you are forced to stab yourself in the eyes with knitting needles.