#golleyslater

I’ve just had a coffee with a colleague. Nice to catch up and have a chat: the usual stuff – the state of the industry, the nature of our clients, where the award-winning work is coming from and going to, what is advertising anyway and when are consumers going to tell us what we're supposed to be doing next. 

At the same time that the democratisation of advertising has put the real power in the hands of the consumer, our clients have lost budgets and gained the fear factor. As platforms and channels blend, our clients have less money than ever to explore them. Culturally, we’re at the mercy of consumers’ fickle relationship with brands, the speed of change in technology, an increasing need – and, as importantly, the technological ability – for us to cast collective social judgment. It's a strange blend of technology, a pack mentality and social behaviour that put Obama in power and brought Murdoch to account. 

Which makes this simultaneously the scariest and the most exciting moment in our industry’s history.

Scary because we’re at the mercy of all of those often opposing and creatively oppressive forces. Scary because our clients have less money and need to do more and their KPIs make them nervous and there are so many unknowns. Scary because all that makes advertising a very serious business.

Or the most exciting because we don’t know what will happen next. Where will our consumers gather next? What will they want to share? What will technology enable us to do next week that we haven’t thought of yet? What can we invent that’s useful and interesting, entertaining or educational, surprising and delightful? And what the fuck is that dog singing about on that app that sends me a cuddly toy of it when I click through to find out something about a pension… maybe?

Feels like we’re at a junction that could redefine the nature of and purpose for creative advertising. And a lot of what happens will depend on our attitude.

It’s a pivotal moment in our agency’s history. In the face of all this flux, we’re rebranding to become the agency of the future. As mentioned, we’ve done all the hard work in terms of repositioning and rewiring the agency from within. So when it came to renaming the agency, we wanted to go on a bit of an adventure. Which is why we’ve given the naming of the agency away – to anyone who wants to play.

Going on this adventure is our way of communicating that we’re an agency that has the right attitude, that we explore without the fear of failure. Basically we’ve chosen to be excited over being scared.

So we’re crowd sourcing our name. Our good friend Patrick Collister's response was that it's either genius or nuts. I'd settle for adventurous. Or even mischievous. Or I could aim high and say brave?