Depending on who you listen to, advertising is in trouble:
"A lot of the agency world has grown less-than-curious. And it shows in all the crappy work." - Steve Hardwick/StrawberryFrog
"And a lot of the crappy work is based on observations, not insights." - Simon Sinek/Sinek Partners
Or advertising is doing fine; it's just the agency business that is in trouble:
Engadget's Peter Rojas, Flavorpill's Sascha Lewis and Theme Magazine's John Lee all say that they are better suited to create the advertising that runs on their properties than traditional agencies are. Why? Because they are better tuned to the unique sensibilities of their highly specific niche audiences and one-size-fits-all agency solutions might be built to scale but may not work well in a long tail world. Oh, and they're already working directly with marketers to create more appropriate advertising that runs on their properties.
But the agencies won't go down without a fight:
Scott Witt from Digitas sister company Denuo predicts that half a dozen major agencies will launch branded content divisions within the coming year in order to move beyond traditional advertising, into the creation of brand-relevant content.
And at least one man thinks that our business is full of promise. Just don't call it advertising...
Mike Byrne, a creative director who left perrenial hot shop Weiden+Kennedy for NYC innovators Anomaly because he "didn't want to make ads anymore." Mike closed the PSFK Conference by reminding us that we are not in the business of churning out ads or even simply selling products. We are in the business of giving people hope. Of a better life, of escape from the pressures of the every-day, of a return to our childhood sense of wonder. Even if we deliver that hope in the form of "30-second stories." Here are two of the 30-second stories (erm, one is actually 60 seconds long) he shared during his presentation:
So what do you think?
