Vision or Experience?

One of the things I've noticed, and one of our biggest challenges as an agency, is the difference between vision and experience. A lot of client cultures look to validate strategic and creative decisions with experience. Have you done that before or do you have any case studies that demonstrates what you propose? It's easy to understand the desire to minimize risk. But it also punishes forward thinking agencies.

Yes, we have plenty of great case studies for great clients but our frustration is that because we push to think new and differently, we're often ahead of the execution and the resulting case studies. Patience is a virtue...but not while waiting for validation. The consumer world is changing and moving rapidly and so are we. We're adapting by creating or changing our creative processes for greater efficiencies and to take advantage of what is new in the world of consumer marketing. And there's something new every second.

The challenge is to identify clients who will choose to work with us for our vision and leadership and not worry about the potential clients out there who require validation through experience. Not that either is bad, we've just chosen the vision path and have become comfortable that it will work differently than traditional agency models. We want the early adopters and the future casters who relish being first.

I prefer the model where vision gives you new and different experience.

Agency Cultures: How do we define them?

Cultures like agencies evolve. It's taken me awhile to put my finger on WonderGroup's, but like all good things it's borne from truth. Some people mistake a slogan for culture, "home of kick ass creative" (actually suggested to me), "smash mouth creativity" (also suggested...I promised to protect the identity of the suggestor). Or they go to guardrails like "respect each other" and "Listen" as cultural badges. But when I tell people what I think defines our agency I point to three things.

1. Entrepreneurial: It's a get it done spirit that inspires everyone to take ownership. If we don't know something, we figure it out. Entrepreneurs are not afraid to work hard, take risk or even fail in stretching to do something different. For our clients, it means we are always working to help them find an advantage. I respect people who get their hands dirty.
   
2. Curious: We really push awareness and learning throughout the entire staff everyday. What did you learn today? How does it change your thinking or approach? A rapidly changing world dictates that we foster and reward curiosity and sharing. It's exciting for me to see folks who were not digitally savvy 4 months ago become Twitter machines overnight. I respect people who ask how and why.
3. Underdog: Nothing like having a little chip on your shoulder to make you more competitive. WonderGroup often finds itself competing against bigger more established New York, Chicago and LA agencies for new business. We relish being the little guys from Cincinnati because the competition almost always undersestimates us. When you start anything as an underdog you, by definition, have to work harder to be smarter and more creative in order to win. When we win, and we do much more than not, it's very gratifying to me, since I'm a recovering New Yorker (did I mention I like competition?). Underdogs never take anything for granted and they don't leave anything on the playing field.

So that's it. Pretty simple and straightforward. And that's the point.

Why creatives are leading agencies today?

In the old agency model, account people (the business people) were always in charge. Back then the ad business acted like a predictable and stable business. The creatives were considered a necessary evil. Flaky, temperamental, easily distracted and dismissed...as in not taken seriously.

Today is different. At some agencies the inmates are now running the asylum. And why not? The "creatives" are most attuned to the changes in consumer behavior effecting today's marketing landscape because they ARE those consumers themselves. It's in their DNA to listen, learn and communicate what's important. The good ones identify emerging trends early and weave them into their work.

Creatives who lead agencies don't fear failure. They are not married to the past. They are eager learners willing to change, reinvent and experiment. They recognize that you cannot take today's social media creative platforms and force them into traditional agency structures and expect to grow or make a profit. There is nothing wrong with really good strategic account people who are creative as well-we need more of them. It's just nice to know creative people can do something other than just be the entertainment.

I like today. Finally, my mom will think I have a real job!

Introducing Matt's Agency 3.0.

My name is Matt Fischer and I am the chief creative officer and chief operating officer of a 75-person ad agency, named WonderGroup, located in Cincinnati, Ohio. Our website is www.wondergroup.com for those of you who are interested. My aim for this blog is to share my thoughts and experiences as I work to steer my agency, with the help of some very talented people, from a traditional agency model (TV, print radio with a little interactive mixed in) to one I think the future will demand (definition of that will be saved for a later blog). It's a brave new world and we are thinking and executing differently. So are our clients. Hopefully, this can be a forum for expressing and sharing ideas.

Matt 1.0

The first 21 years of my career was spent in various ad agencies in New York (you can see my career on LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/mrfischer) doing what every creative did for their clients, thinking in 30 second increments, throw in a print ad or two, maybe a radio spot, and then move on to the next client, campaign or whatever. Nothing ever changed. Then came the dot.com meltdown. At the time I lost my job I was an EVP, Group Creative Director, at FCB New York. The creative account I was leading at the time was Tropicana. Tropicana is owned by Pepsi. FCB's holding company, True North, was bought by Interpublic, a Coke agency holding company. Someone thought these two companies would get along working with separate agencies under one holding company. Pepsi felt otherwise and fired us. I was fired on a Friday. 911 happened the following Tuesday. To say that that changed everything would be an understatement. Instead of playing golf all Fall and finding a similar job just after Christmas, I realized the world had changed profoundly and I wasn't prepared to compete in this suddenly foreign agency landscape. To make a long story short, I freelanced as much as possible while I looked in vane for a similar job in NYC. Then in the Spring of 2003, I was presented with the opportunity to joined a small 5-year old agency in Cincinnati (with about 25 employees at the time) to lead the creative department, help grow the agency and develop an agency culture. VISUAL: OPEN ON A MOVING TRUCK BACKING UP TO A HOUSE IN NEW JERSEY

to be continued...