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Most agencies like winning awards because it boosts egos (and arguably work morale) and impresses clients. It’s not strange, therefore, that agencies at the top take awards very seriously. Most often, as above graphics clearly show, it becomes a numbers game. The more award entries you submit, the better your chances are for an award – given the fact that your work holds a certain standard (let’s say seven out of ten points).

I did a quick calculation on the handful Swedish agencies that got awarded this year in Cannes and found that the entry-to-award ratio didn’t differ that much among the agencies. Average ratio was about seven percent plus minus two percent (so, between 5 and 9 percent). In other words, given a certain quality of work, a Swedish top agency can expect to get ONE Cannes Lion for every 10-14 entries.

Then there are agencies like Wieden+Kennedy and Droga that totally beat the statistics through absolutely fantastic work. I think getting there takes a lot more than just above average work and statistics. In this world it’s probably more about how the things that make your agency different and how these translate into real-world advantages. Things such as creative culture, business philosophy and a powerful agency brand are probably key in building and sustaining a successful agency over time when the exact same people go in and out of every agency. Either that or you can go building a large global network with hundreds of thousands of people and hope for the best (yes, that works too).

Me and my colleague and wiz designer Daniel Forero here at Jung von Matt Stockholm just made this poster.
Hope you like it.

More colors coming soon!

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.