My good friend and client Jim Stengel, CMO of Procter & Gamble, recently graded the industry C minus!! Jim has challenged us to improve, and to improve fast.

I joined Saatchi & Saatchi as CEO seven years ago. I’d never worked in an agency before. I was the client for 30 years with companies like Gillette, Pepsi and P&G. Companies which believed that agencies were their most valued, most valuable, most value-adding long-term partners. Think BBDO at Gillette and Pepsi. Saatchi & Saatchi, Leo and Grey at P&G.

In the seven years I’ve been with Saatchi & Saatchi, changes have swept through at warp speed. We’ve hurtled through the Information Age, the Age of Knowledge, the Age of Experience, the Entertainment Age.

Mass markets have eroded. Brands have been commodified. Business has gone under the ethical microscope. Media has proliferated and fragmented. Ownership has consolidated.

We’ve seen Focus transfer from management consultants, to bankers, to dot com/dot gone-ers, and back to the Blue Chips. Those old economy dinosaurs who actually make stuff people use every day!

Power has shifted too. Big time. From the manufacturers in the 80s, to the retailers in the 90s and, at last – and great news for us – to the consumer today.

In the face of such complex change our industry rushed to accommodate everyone. And failed to please anyone. Our response has been incremental and piecemeal. We forgot what we stood for in the first place – and if you stand for nothing, you fall for everything. We haven’t got out in front. We’ve been reactive …. And we deserve Jim’s C minus.

What we face is exactly what we warn our clients about.

Our industry is being commodified. Too much competition, too little differentiation, too much incrementalism, too little innovation. Too much following, not enough leading.

I’m here to fight for creativity, for Ideas. We live in the Age of the Idea. Ideas are the currency of the future….

Because so few people have ’em, and so few organizations let them live. They are of course the reason we got into the business in the first place.

A dogmatic singular focus on media, channel, technology or cycle isn’t the answer. Playing follow-the-producer takes us nowhere. Except into the bath blowing bubbles.

Our fight-back to A plus starts with the consumer. It’s consumer, not convergence. The consumer is boss. A boss who wants surprise and delight, not a mirror. Who wants to be impressed and enthralled, not followed around with a clipboard.

Consumers don’t think in channels, mediums, convergence, segments. They make emotional random choices anywhere, anytime:

• Today – “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy”
• Tomorrow – “Starsky and Hutch” – the movie
• Saturday – Wal-Mart
• Sunday – The Miami Herald
• Monday – Starbucks
• Tuesday – Yahoo
• Wednesday – the Apple Store.

And always with one ear on their mobile, one hand on the radio dial and an eye out the window. Just in case.

No new medium displaces an existing one. They all survive. This is The Age of Also. Where ideas rule. And passion delivers.

We must reignite and rebuild our belief, our investment, our confidence in the power of the Idea. We must re-establish the vital central role of the creative communications agency at the heart of our clients’ business strategy.

Our C minus crisis is a crisis of confidence. Of faith. Too many of us are no longer convinced that great creative will drive business. Without that absolute conviction we slide into executional irrelevance.

We’ve been marginalized by armies of middle managers with the right to say “no” – but not the power to say “yes”. The Abominable No-Man, at the client, at the holding company, in the finance department, in the research company.

We’ve backed away from the call made by Dawn Hudson at Pepsi-Cola two years back: “I want an agency that is creative enough to help me reinvent my total business.”

We have the ideas, the passion, the emotion, the dreams that business needs to innovate. Only we hire the people who can do that. But we downplay them. Consultancies and design shops are all over innovation while we are stuck in business-as-usual.

Advertising agencies must become the Client’s Ghostbusters.

When the client CEO needs a hand to change the world, who you gonna call? It has to be us.

Why should we be the “go-to” people? Because we know the consumer best. Know her intimately. We know in Gerard Manley Hopkins’s words that she is “All things counter, original, spare and strange.” We know that David Ogilvy was right. The consumer is not a moron. She’s your wife.

Our A+ demands a repositioning of ROI. From procurement-driven Return On Investment to revenue-driven Return On Involvement. We are an ideas industry. And we still haven’t worked out how to get paid for them. Even worse, we give them away!

Commissions have gone. Fees and cost are anathema. How we became time consultants is beyond me. We’ve been cloned like Agent Smith in The Matrix.

We are dream merchants. Magicians. Artists. The Compensation Model must reward us for ideas and results, not time.

I’m an advocate of Procter & Gamble’s ANR system. Economics 101. Sell a lot of stuff. Make a lot of dough. Don’t sell a lot of stuff. Don’t make a lot of dough!

Our job is to grow share and sales for our clients. None of us are in marketing. We are in the sales business. To avoid being commodified, we must be accountable. Our future, our growth is performance-priced.

Value-for-ideas raises the “Watchability” issue. Most of today’s commercials, like most programs, are a turn-off. Literally.

Clients are working this out. “Gee, can you make ’em… watchable?” The great creative agencies are saying ‘We had this conversation 10 years ago. And the answer is still “Yes!”

One consumer question matters. “Do you want to watch it again?” If yes, you’ve connected with an idea. If no, you’ve executed with an ad. Payment should be relative.

I’m a big believer in TV. For several reasons.

In the developed world everyone has one, everyone knows how to use one, and it’s the best medium invented for emotional, multi-dimensional story-telling.

In the developing world – China, India, Brazil, Russia – TV is the dominant medium by miles and will be for the next decade.

There are two requisites in any media. A great idea and an emotional space to sell it. The TV screen is a fantastic emotional space.

Don’t get waylaid by debates around broadcast and cable and TiVo and online etc. Don’t use fragmentation as an excuse to get more complicated. Instead focus on the screen. That fascinating, pulsing, lit-up, connecting, colorful screen.

Bury “The Old TV”. It’s over and gone. Start inventing “The New TV”.

“The New TV” takes sight, sound and motion to new heights of entertainment, sensuality and intimate interactivity. It starts with an inspired idea and then digitizes it, individualizes it, pushes it two-way.

Old TV thinking leads to C minus while “The New TV” is the fast-track to the A plus Jim is urging us to go for.

“The New TV” can be ten times as powerful if the ideas are big, relevant, involving, rewarding.

The 30-second spot is not dead. And it won’t die. But the future belongs to New TV Creatives who think of the 30 minute spot, the made-to-measure interactive, the 10-second sound bite. The creatives who think of watchability.

Job No.1 is the idea.

Media should be driven by ideas, not formats. We must not become obsessed by touch points. They are fixed on what the medium, not the idea, can do. It’s and/and. Idea and media as early as possible in the process. It’s not a battle between the media planners and the brand planners. They must be together, at the same time, around the same table. With the client. The creative idea is the driver, the media, the connector.

If any one here has done a non-holistic, non-integrated campaign without touch points, please see me after!!

A plus is about simplicity. Start with the consumer. How the idea connects with her. How it resonates and grows. And then get to the medium and show we can embrace the consumer, not just touch her.

There’s a new medium on the block. But he’s sure not digital. He’s living and breathing and he’s set to transform a 20-minute dash through hell. A tunnel where 80 percent of purchase decisions happen. Where 50 percent of brand switches are made.

Our ticket to that A plus is through the Theatre of Dreams. The Store….

Imagine you’re a Creative with a burning desire to do great work and be horribly rich and famous – not necessarily in that order! The smart move is to find a category where the work is rubbish, and do great work there.

Creative reputations in the next decade will be made in the Store. In Shopper Marketing. The store is a nightmare to consumers. But to hot creatives – Aladdin’s Cave. The Store is begging for ideas and inspiration.

Start with the obvious questions. Why does in-store radio have to be so painfully crap? Who looks good under that supermarket lighting? Why do consumers only spend 20 minutes per visit in Wal-Mart?

Let us surprise and delight shoppers in-store with metaphors, stories, dreams and symbols. Mystery.

Enrapture sight, sound, scent, touch, taste. Sensuality.

Resonate with empathy, commitment, passion. This is Intimacy. Then they’ll spend 25 minutes there and Wal-Mart and our clients will love us!!

At Saatchi & Saatchi we call brands that do this – Lovemarks.

The Love / Respect Axis is one way to check out a Lovemark. Let’s grade our industry.

 

• Bottom left is commodities. Low respect. Low Love. Jim’s C- pit.
• Bottom right is Fads. Low Respect High Love. Last month’s gotta-haves. Next month’s has-beens. A campaign sitting there is fine. An industry is not.
• Top left is Brands. High Respect Low Love. Not bad. A place for survivors. Bs. Where we might feel comfortable but where we’ll never be sure.
• Top right is Lovemarks. High Respect. High Love. A plus Nirvana. Loyalty beyond reason. The only place to be. An inspirational place.

We’ve been sideswiped by Microsoft and McKinsey. This once was an exciting industry. A dream job in a house of dreams. They made TV shows and movies about us. What’s left is a sitcom!

An A plus grade needs A plus talent. To win we need big minds, big hearts and big dreams. Only the best of the best deserve to get in the door. Then inspire them by putting them together with our best and biggest clients.

Selling ideas is as vital as creating them. But today a lot of our persuaders are just solid B people. We need Inspirational Players. Not people who serve clients. People who add value to clients. Recruitment is pivotal.

The role of business is to make the world a better place for everyone. If business doesn’t step up to the plate, who will? Only business creates jobs, choices, and self-esteem. Only business unlocks innovation.

Business is the engine of human progress. Advertising and ideas lubricate that engine. Advertising is the vital link between producers and consumers. Through emotion, advertising inspires action. Without us, commerce stops. With us, commerce transforms.

Here’s a summary of how we’ll improve our grade:

Remember the Consumer is Boss. Not the researcher. Not the client.

• Embrace the Age of the Idea. Rekindle our faith in: Ideas, imagination, intuition, insight, inspiration. Empathy, enchantment, excitement, edge, emotion. Only we can transform our clients’ brands through the power of our creative talent and our world-changing ideas. Our highly-valued and highly-priced ideas!!
• Drive and Connect. Get the media geniuses and the strategic, creative wizards around the table with the key clients early and often.
• Get Paid for Performance. Advertising is a selling expense not a marketing investment. We sell stuff. Pay us a royalty on sales.
• Embrace the New TV. See TV as a brand new medium, with no creative limitations, no norms, no history. A place to Think Different.
• Step into the Theatre of Dreams. A fantastic creative opportunity. Entertain, stimulate, thrill, inspire and involve.
• Attract the Best. An agency is still more fun than a client, a consultancy or a university. So find the best of the best. Then unleash and inspire them on your biggest clients.
• Make the World a Better Place. Through emotion and inspiration, we can make a difference.