Our conventional basis of business endangers our purpose.
It imposes a tyranny of hours that jeopardizes the well-being of agencies and brands.
The current system of transaction devalues advertising by making work about labor not effect when brands need magic; and by prioritizing accounting over the attention, predisposition, and action brands need to survive and grow.
Marketers can’t afford it.
Agencies can’t afford it.
It’s time to free ourselves of it.
Advertising value is a matter of persuasion, not accounting.
The same holds for agency value. Agencies rescue brands from obscurity and fuel the engine of our economy. Advertising output changes minds and changes the fortunes of business by creating the relevance that the economy depends on.
This transformative power comes from our people. Interconnected, interdependent talent working together to create breakthrough solutions to complex problems. Their synergy transcends units of labor and time.
We don’t pay U2 for hours played; we pay for the transformative experience. The drummer can’t focus on playing if he’s counting drum strokes.
We don’t pay a surgeon for hours operated; we pay for the physical repair. The team can’t focus on plugging a rupture if they’re counting how many sponges they use.
The hours system imposes a tax on agency energy – 15% or more – to estimate, log, adjust, and bill time. It disregards how the best ideas occur organically through extended focus, not in a six-hour timeframe. And it establishes a false accountability, as management pesters and threatens employees to complete timesheets, with made-up reports being filed weeks after the work is done.
This condemns our industry to a race to the bottom. Where ordinary becomes the standard. Where chronic underpayment of agencies triggers systemic conflict of interest to restore margins. And where the creative talent we require avoid advertising because they’re disenrolled by punching a clock.
Current industry conventions are agreements. When they become destructive to the purpose of the business, it’s our duty to discard them for new norms to safeguard the future of our industry.
There is no status for independent agencies in the advertising status quo.
We must replace it with a business basis that fits the enterprise.
A more tangible, sustainable foundation that recognizes deliverables, not activities and time. An honest framework that restores magic, inspires talent by prizing brilliance of contribution over diligence of routine. A new system that raises us back to where we belong.
Lobbying associations, implementing our own remedies, and pleading with client financial audiences will not overturn the status quo that marginalizes agencies.
We declare it’s time to take this on as a community. So we are free to create and deliver the extraordinary.
