this is violence

I was reading this today about Belgian agencies holding a “virtual strike” against their…potential clients?…in an effort to show their….value?…

I don’t know. Something.

The whole thing seems very conceptually messy and comes off like the whining of the prima donnas I think most people believe make up the ad industry.

Setting aside for a moment the really just terrible way the message has been tactically implemented, the over arching complaint I think does the opposite of what it set out to do. After spending the last 20 years commodifying the industry, and increasingly obfuscating the actual value of their work, agencies seem somehow surprised that their clients would treat them like…commodities of unverified value. Then, instead of hunkering down and actually trying to change the way they do business, instead of demonstrating clearly their unique and irreplaceable value to their clients, they pull a “we’re taking our ball and going home” routine.

But only for a week. Because goddamn if agencies just have 0 ability to think past the next campaign. Then, just to pour salt on the wound, they break up their complaint letter into 26 fragments, and post it all IN FLASH.

TEXT.
IN FLASH.

Way to show your clients you understand how to work online.

Here is my message back to these agencies:
You made this bed. You devised a business model 30 years ago and have been sitting on it ever since. You say you’re the gateway to the customer, you say you’re creative vision, the “design thinking”; but all you’ve been pedaling is your self-aggrandizing, T.V. based narrative for as long as any one can remember. You are, in fact, an uncreative dinosaur of an industry and this is what happens.