thirtymlmusings

Ad land is in the throes of an upheaval; a once confident, cocky and culture defining industry seems to be cowering for survival, unsure of itself. Advertising is also being rebuilt structurally, holding companies are consolidating; from Omnicom-IPG merger to WPP dismantling itself into a single integrated organization. The impact of these actions will extend beyond job losses, declines in any creative industry impacts culture too. 

Amidst technological shifts and a volatile business environment, lines have blurred between consulting firms and agencies, consulting companies like Accenture now pitch advertising solutions and advertising companies are scrambling to reinvent themselves as MarTech and transformation consultants. And why not? Wall Street rewards businesses that describe themselves using jargon like AI-first or digital transformation. 

However, this ad-land metamorphosis unfolding before our eyes seems more like Mr. Hyde’s transformation into Dr. Jekyll, messy, grotesque and painful to watch.

Amidst this AI-MarTech-optimization-lemmings rush, we seem to have forgotten that people buy, cookies on browsers don’t. And people are not as logical, rational and algorithmic as the tech bros pontificate nor as emotional and irrational as the behavioral economists preach. Human insights lie somewhere in between. And it was the ad agencies that tapped into these insights to give us timeless campaigns like Har Ghar Kuch Kehta Hain, Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye, Jaago Re – building brands like Asian Paints, Cadbury’s and Tata Tea.

Uncovering this human insight is what makes advertising part science and part art. In the rush towards data and algorithms, agencies seem to have abandoned the “art”. Perhaps, also forgetting that advertising is not all commerce, but also culture and the people working in advertising are artists too.

Ozymandias, a sonnet written by the English poet Shelly in 1817, describes the ruins of the once majestic statue of Ozymandias – another name for Pharaoh Ramses II – now swallowed by the desert. 

“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read”

Though the sculpture is broken, the ‘frown’ and wrinkled lip’ and the ‘sneer’ shows the Pharoah’s pride – his personality immortalised in stone – art’s enduring power to preserve humanity’s legacy.  And this was the power ad agencies wielded, shaping culture, searing symbols like Nike’s swoosh or the Amul girl in our collective memories and building brands that endured generations. And why wouldn’t this make creative folks in advertising any less an artist than Ozymandias’ sculptor?

But, ad agencies seem to have forgotten that they are artists too. They cower before AI-tools spitting out soulless copy and generic images. While machines may mimic, they cannot make the leap into the realm of soul-stirring ideas. 

If agencies want to survive and thrive, they must reclaim their identities as artists. Only then can they can resist the tyranny of the short-term, regain their creative courage to remind clients that building great brands requires a balance between the “long” and the “short”. And the ability to demand a fair value for their work, defying what’s decreed by procurement spreadsheets. Rediscovering their identity will help agencies embrace their role as round pegs in square holes. 

This probably explains why independent agencies are finding success, they are doubling down on the craft that made advertising matter in the first place. 

So, as Dylan Thomas urged, 

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Advertising must rage – not against technology, but against commodification of creativity. Ad Land’s work is far more valuable; it is to create work that’s rooted in human insights and earn a place in memory. While algorithms may optimize, platforms automate, ad-land must not surrender the soul of advertising. In rediscovering their role as artists lies ad-land’s redemption. 

First published in afaqs here.