1) Constant change is the new normal, that seems to be the accepted overall trend. But what was interesting to me this year was a bit of the notion that as things change the more they stay the same. As new media like Facebook, Snapchat etc., became expected staples in the landscape, many big brand leaders began to question their effectiveness and ROI. When that happened good ol’ fashioned film, TV and storytelling re-established their importance. They aren’t going anywhere. The most memorable pieces of work every year by real people, not the industry, are stories. And agencies that are not traditionally storytellers desperately want to be all of a sudden. TV and film are not everything obviously. They are just a part of a bigger multi-media idea and integration, but TV isn’t quite the dirty word it was. And that is good.
2) It is a big year for Grey with the arrival of John Patroulis from BBH. It’s early still but he is an incredible fit. A lot of change and energy and his ambition for the place is extremely high. Not just for the day to day creative standard but for Grey’s place more broadly in the industry – the largest truly creative run agency in the world. He is inheriting a strong foundation and now has the freedom and power to see it through. It will be exciting times.
3) Right now I’m most proud of the work we’ve been doing on Febreze. It is one brand that is consistently living up to Famously Effective. Our Super Bowl program last year shortlisted several times at Cannes, big on social and earned, while sparking a huge increase in sales. It single handedly got one product moving off shelf, and pushed another product to new heights. That positive growth has been kept alive with our insightful “Odor Odes” campaign through the spring and summer. And we have another go at the Super Bowl. Hats off to the client for regularly taking chances as well as coming up with innovative ways to get to brave work quickly.
Fingers crossed on 2018’s Super Bowl that we keep the momentum going.
4) Data, data, data, data. I still don’t totally get it all and alot of it seems like a bunch of googly moogly. But we are starting to wrap our heads creatively around this simple notion; data inspires ideas, data can be used to implement them.
Data has been hot for a few years, but it now seems that creatives are starting to better understand how to fit into it all. Work that doesn’t take advantage of the massive amounts of research and info we have at our fingertips seems like a missed opportunity. And data that doesn’t have a creative or emotional spin, is just plain boring. They need each other. Oh and media too. Love me some media people. Get in there too.
5) Be a better 4th grade basketball coach. I suck. I have all these big thoughts about our offensive philosophies; spread offense, ball movement, lots of screening. I fancy myself as the Gregg Popovich of CYO. And then I miss practice because I’m here, and it all goes to hell.
Second. Get to ideas faster and get to market faster. Try things in market even if they are not 100% perfect. Most campaigns don’t start out 100% perfect. But we should get it out there and keep tinkering with it. Like a new TV show, the pilot is never as good as season 3. But they get it out there and improve on it, tweak the tone, tweak the messaging, the balance and get it right. Getting work produced faster is on us the agency. We have to be quicker to ideas and quicker to produce them. But getting work to market faster and not overthinking it to the point of paralysis is on the client. And for some of them they are literally killing their business by letting personal opinion, subjectivity and ego keep them from being relevant in market.
