10 things T&T ad agencies need to fix.

  1. People management skills.  We have Creative Directors and Media Directors and no People Directors.
  2. Stop the train.  Speed is killing the quality of creative.  Great ideas cannot be born in the time it takes to microwave popcorn.
  3. Pitching Creative ideas for free.  Think about this scenario.  You go to your architect and you tell them:  “I’m going to build a 4 bedroom house with 3 baths, a study, a porch and an open kitchen: do a design and drawing and show me how it will look please.  And by the way, I’m asking 3 other architects to do the same.  And can I have it by next week?”
  4. Reliance on Shutterstock and other web-based stock photo purveyors.  There is one grey haired lady that has appeared in over 10 campaigns from banking, to pharmacy to government to fmcg…so much for differentiation.
  5. No accountability.  How do we know that what we have done has helped our clients sales and its brands.
  6. Using digital as a broadcast medium instead of as one where we engage people.
  7. Training our creative.  Account Service has traditionally gotten most of the attention.
  8. Being a brand ourselves.  (Pepper’s one thing is strategy.  We differentiate ourselves on being able to differentiate others)
  9. Letting anyone who asks to enter behind our red rope.  Not everyone gets into a night club.  Why should any client who comes along be accepted by an agency because he has a cheque book and a heart beat? (there needs to be a fit; we should only work with clients who energise and inspire us)
  10. Improving internal communication so we’re all on the same page and in the same book.