Celebrating cluelessness

[by Todd] You gotta feel some pity for the execs at the top of media companies and big agencies. Here they are, at the pinnacle of their career, ready for the good life, and damn if innovation isn’t slapping them around, screaming in their ear that their companies are in trouble.

This week we have two examples of the clueless discovering reality, very slowly.

Clueless Example 1 -- The Media Giants

Thursday's The Wall Street Journal detailed how Time Inc. is revisiting the days of Pathfinder as it tries to integrate its magazines and web sites. (Remember that $75 million debacle from the 90s? You can revisit it via the Internet Archive here.)

The headline “Time Inc. Makes New Bid to Be Big Web Player” really made clear how pathetic, and unnecessary this corporate convulsing is.

"What's abundantly clear to us is that there is a really attractive, smart readership who are younger than they are older and who get what they are looking for from the Web," says Time Managing Editor James Kelly.

Of course it is abundantly clear only a decade after the Internet emerged as a powerful tool for getting news and information. Rather than having this clarity of vision in the 90’s Time Inc. found its spectacles while trying to understand why circulation is taking a nose dive at all its flagship publications.

Time Inc. executives say they fear some of the declines may be permanent as more money flows to the Internet.

Take a moment and read that sentence again. Aren't you just fighting the urge to say No !@#^?

The article notes that efforts to embrace the online world were doomed by “editorial culture that viewed Internet operations as a backwater.” Anyone who’s worked in online content can sing hallelujah.

Clueless Example 2 -- The Creatives

Reading Aaron Baar's "Teaching an  Old(er) Creative New Tricks" in Adweek I could decide if I wanted to knock heads or just sit in a corner and whimper. The article gave a landscape view of how creative teams at several brand agencies around the country were coming to grips with the technology that is exploding their world. Here's just a few of my favorites:

• Jack Supple, the 54-year-old chairman of Carmichael Lynch in Minneapolis, said he meets regularly with the Web developers and designers at his agency to get a better feel for what's out there.
• At DDB New York, the agency's "wall of opportunity," which was originally used for creative briefs, is now a place where creative staffers can post articles and ideas about emerging technologies.
• "I used to think you could noodle something out on a pad and have someone else execute it on a computer," said Jeff Goodby, 54, co-chairman at Omnicom's Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. "But now I believe you have to understand technology just to know what's possible."

I actually took heart at the fact that IPG's Mullen agency has 20-person "digital disruption group" that is charged with getting everyone "thinking digitally about every client."

But what is missing from every one of these examples? An understanding that working in consumer controlled media requires a fundamentally different approach. Not a single agency has embraced emerging technology enough to disband their interactive groups and integrate them throughout the rest of the teams.

If this is really the future, wouldn't you want these talented people touching everything your agency produces? All these examples are variants of the same old model where great campaigns flow down from Mt. Creative. Not a single example suggested a new approach to creative, where planners, digital strategists, media planners, promotions and public relations experts were part of the up-front thinking.

Until agencies get the point that new technologies are fundamentally changing the way brands talk with the customer, they're condemned to suffer. Not that they don't deserve it.

-Posted by Todd

Comments

[Gene]

As I was reading the first article about Time, I can't believe it was written this week and not five years ago. As long as we have CMOs and CCO who have their assistants print out their email, companies will keep missing the opportunity to truely connect with their consumers in a way that is relevant to their lifestyle.

Yes the Internet is here to stay, but what people don't want to think about is that it is changing just as fast today as it was during the "dot com" era.

[ernie mosteller]

Excellent. Perfect, even.

[veedub]

why is it surprising that people over a certain age are having trouble keeping up with the "new" media? they're old. they're rich. they've had their day in the sun.

what's surprising is that they're even pretending to care.

[tamir berkman]

The big agencies job was to make the brand managers happy.
Now they need to switch minds and think how to make the users happy.
After all, it’s the users who actually pay their retainers - not the brand.

[Anon]

Unfortunately, Mullen's group isn't very active. I just left there. If I'm thinking of the same thing, I can rember hearing about some "groups" Mullen was starting, but heard nothing more after that. I should add the caveat that I was a general advertising person. Maybe the interactive side of the house benefited some.

[olivier blanchard]

Excellent post (and blog)!

[newnimproved]

The Web (where else?) has broken out into a rash of ranting geeks parading themselves as frustrated, misunderstood creative souls.
I have blogged my thoughts at:

http://newnimproved.blogspot.com/2006/04/clueless-geeks.html