Still An Ad Man?

This was a question I received in a Christmas card form a long-lost advertising colleague back in New York. An innocent question, but the response is not so simple. Yeah, I’m still an “ad man” (sorry for the sexist characterization) but my job and the ad industry has changed dramatically since the last time this friend and I had worked together, that it's difficult for me to think about it in that context.

The increasingly accelerated pace of change.

Everyday I am struck by the sheer speed by which everything familiar, tested and true is falling to the wayside. It seems like this unprecedented period of financial turmoil, fear, and the very loathing of change itself, is testing and forcing venerable business models to reinvent to simply survive. As we say goodbye at this time of year to what's old and welcome in the new who can possibly imagine what’s in store for the rest of this year? Think about this week’s news, iTunes is forced to change its pricing model. AOL is bleeding to death for lack of relevance to an audience it once owned. Who will remember what a DVD is 10 years from now?

What we are witnessing is simply the complete upheaval and reinvention of every distribution system known to man. Whether it’s the distribution of content, entertainment, information or good ol’ durable products, we are seeing new, more efficient paths to the consumer being created everyday. Monopolies and middlemen watch out, this is your death knell. If your livelihood is like a barnacle that attaches itself to some greater product or service, I have some bad news for you, your days are numbered. The trick for all of us is to figure out what the new jobs and roles will be in this landscape. The scribes eventually had to find new occupations after Gutenberg introduced the printing press, so must we adapt and evolve if ad agencies are to have a purpose 20 years from now.

No doubt about it, We're changing, the ad business is changing and the world is changing, too. There are no brakes, not even a terrible economy.