Jung von Matt Stockholm, the agency where I work, started out in 2006 and was thus a fully-integrated analogue and digital creative shop from start. Being ’idea neutral’ isn’t really enough these days as clients demand more for less – more creativity and more accountability for less money and less time. Since real compensation levels hasn’t increased in the last decade and the shelf-life of innovative agency ”products” is constantly decreasing, we have been looking inwards.

What if the way we (and most agencies) work, the ”production function” of the agency is what needs to be changed (rather than the product, which is evolving anyway)?

For the last months we have been challenging and rethinking exactly this by asking ourselves:

- Does it really take weeks to formulate a proper strategy and create good ideas?
- Can we create an end-solution that’s even better (more creative and more strategically robust – i.e. quality) in a fraction of the time?
- Can we work in a fashion where planning and creation are iterative processes rather than linear?
- Can we be more dynamic in bringing in specialist competencies?
- Can we challenge the traditional art director + copywriter setup?

We believe that the key to answering these questions lies in the managing of chaos by pragmatically embracing it, not by controlling it. We have been looking at the emergency room and how patients are treated: always through a systematic, multidisciplinary and super-decisive step-by-step process.

It’s not really rocket science, but coping with modern-day communication challengs requires a new set of principles and mindset to what and why we’re actually doing with whom – from start to finish.

We don’t have the full answer yet, but as a first important step we have started organising projects like Creative Taskforces rather than rigid teams, with implications for both internal organisation and client relationships. Keywords: systematic, decisive, nonlinear, multidisciplinary, fast…

Whatcha think?

Most products are commodities. Yet, in this commoditised world many planners and creatives try to communicate product uniqueness.

”There’s nothing unique about this product” is a too common stated that results in frustration or in advertising that is irrelevant.

Relevance and differentiation are of course still important objectives of communication, but they don’t necessarily have to be based on product relevance. The important thing, after all, is the goal – to sell more stuff.

It’s time to bury the benefit ladder thinking.

As I see it strategic planning carry much of the responsibility of advertising thinking. If we are determined to base advertising on dramatising product features, we will always have the problem of products that are commodities.

What’s the alternative? The answer is philosophical:

German philosopher Immanuel Kant concluded that we can know nothing about things as they are themselves. We can only know the world of appearances. In other worlds, objects have no inherent properties beyond the ones provided by our senses.

And even modern-day science tries to redefines what everything is actually made up of.

What does this mean in practice for brand thinking?

Most importantly, there’s only one reality, the one perceived by the beholder. There’s no absolute truth or arguments, only the perception of it.

Does this mean we can communicate whatever we want? No, but freeing ourselves of product benefit thinking and embracing the fact that perception is everything means we also can reframe the role of communications. We can create alternative brand propositions that aren’t based on product propositions and by doing so we find ways of connecting with people in new and meaningful ways.

It has to be said that most advertising agencies are pretty good at market sensing: we imitate, adapt and evolve according to the latest trends in communications. For a long time, this process used to be easily manageable, because trends only affected the output of the advertising agency, not the business model. And even if they did, the pace at which they did it wasn’t unmanageable.

Things are different today, because now trends equals technology. This has made change much more difficult to source and to leverage. Today, being up-to-date with the latest technology trends isn’t enough to gain a competitive advantage. This has opened up a field for new types of agencies with different business models, often with specialising in a certain innovations.

A competitive advantage can only be temporary, and considering the accelerating pace of technological development, a niched communications agency at the edge of innovation will almost certainly become outdated at one point in time. This is because innovation requires thought leadership, which in turn requires investment into human capital (e.g. R&D).

Perhaps the most successful innovation strategy for an agency is to find the sweetspot between innovation and commercialisation?

There’s no perfect template for creative briefs. But with the iPad there could well be. This template would be interactive and customizable in real-time – just drag ‘n drop the elements you need. Or download new ones.

The name of this software? iBrief of course. Could somebody please invent this?

How much does creativity matter in business? According to the research of Micael Dahlén, a professor at Stockholm School of Economics, a company’s success in terms of sales, market share, profitability and customer satisfaction is highly correlated to two areas: creativity in marketing and creativity in product development.

Some numbers to illustrate: if a company invests in marketing at a new product launch, the value will increase from 405 million dollars to 929 million dollars. If it doesn’t it will decrease to 122 million dollars.

The importance of marketing vis-a-vis product development is explained by the fact that most new products are incremental innovations on mature markets.

Money talks, and creativity should therefore not be taken lightly.

[Thanks to Camilla for the tip]

Creating social or cultural conflicts is a great creative strategy for achieving communicative momentum. Especially when the brand allows for it. Above is a “promo trailer” for a fictive company called Sandhamnstek (part of a social media campaign to generate PR) we set up for our client TV3 who will air a reality show about an island outside Stockholm that gets invaded by a certain group of people during summer. Unless you’re Swedish, it may be hard to fully appreciate this, but the strategy is to create tension by addressing real issues that are opposite to Swedish norms and values. Not to be confused with simply pissing people off, although there’s a fine line between the two.

Technology doesn’t only let us create wonderful new applications and platforms. It’s also a good friend for pushing good old content.

As technology becomes commoditized at a fast pace, there’s no intrinsic value of selecting media for any other sake than efficiency. The real agency challenge is therefore not to be innovative per se, but ability to exploit innovation.

Two of my favorites when it comes to content:

Get your Basketball and The Life for Halo ODST 3.

This TED talk by Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi about creativity and flow made me think about what actually determines greatness in life, both from an individual perspective and from a agency perspective. 

It all comes down to one thing: experience. Intelligence and talent is one thing, but becoming super-skilled is all about doing things many times over. After ten years of doing something, you will fully master it. So, it's all about statistics. Nassim Nicolas Taleb, author of Fooled by Randomness, has an even more extreme position: he argues that success is totally random – people who have reached exceptional wealth have been the right people at the right time in the right environment. 

I'd say the outlook for somebody who believes only in statistics is rather gloomy, and I believe there's one way to beat the system: productivity (not really surprising, most exceptional people I know also happen to work a lot). So, if you're twice as productive as the average person, you will do twice as much and instead of ten years, you'll master a subject after five years. If you're lazy, things will take longer – unless you're a lucky bastard, that is. 

The credo of Account Planning Group is Championing in creative excellence sounds vague, but the task of the planner has always been rooted in guarding creativity from bad stuff (like client research). And while this is still relevant in many ways, the pressures AND opportunities for delivering relevant creativity has never been greater. 

The most efficient solution for advertising agencies to adapt to a changing macro environment has always been to remodel and reinvent itself. But is this survival strategy the best one today when communication trends have a lifespan of 12 months? I'm not sure. Reinventing an advertising agency takes lots of time, and time is money. 

I don't have the solution, but I'm not sure the future of the advertising agency lies in capitalising on specific expertise/resources to gain short-run competitive advantages. Rather, it may lie in the capability to deliver creative thinking over the long-term.

At an extreme this would mean that the things we call planning tools are pretty useless for getting ahead (not per se, tools are still good for efficiency). Instead of being focussed on WHAT ideal are going to achieve, planning would in this alternative reality be focussed on HOW we will achieve our ideals. 

Just a thought. 

Footnote: planning guru Russell Davies wrote a piece on The Planning Lab about the greatest planning challenge not being brands but organisations here.