1) I think that 2015 saw the resurgence – refreshingly – of the Big Idea. As media gets more and more fragmented the primacy of the big idea becomes more and more important. I feel that the things that really managed to cut through this year – whether it was Always’ like a girl, RGA’s True Love or the XXXX Anti-Nazi March – really had a great and important idea at the heart of them. I think there is a social movement afoot in the world at the moment where consumers are calling for more transparency and accountability from their brands and I think that creates a great opportunity for us to really push messaging that means something. Advertising at it’s best has the ability to change and progress the cultural landscape and I think that using our creative firepower for that is huge, meaningful and important. It was nice to feel those sorts of ideas making a real comeback in 2015.
2) We’re all in the people business and as a result we’re only as good as the individuals who walk our halls, drink our coffee and use the blow dry bar in our Women’s bathroom. We’ve really put a focus on hiring and recruitment this year. We’ve institutionalized the role of Head of Talent and have made filling the right roles with the right people a key facet of our progress and development going forward. Hiring is a much more difficult challenge than it often gets credit for but it’s definitely one that we see as critical to our future success. For us, it’s imperative that we focus on every Account Executive, Senior Producer or Creative Team that we bring in as each and every person here is critical to getting great work made.
4) We’ve been up against the challenge of producing more for less over the last several years and I see that continuing. We need to make content faster and make more of it with every quarter that passes. I think the challenge for us as an industry is to make the work we put out good. It’s not easy to put out ANY work but it’s really really hard to put our GREAT work. But, that should be the standard we hold ourselves to whether it’s a tweet, an online video or a splashy TV ad. We need to convince our clients that good, smart, challenging work can answer their business need because ultimately, I think it can.
