To be clear, we bear no ill will towards any agency’s attempt to self promote. OK, that’s not exactly true. Why? Because when agencies decide to self-promote, the results are often disastrous. See Agency.com. See SapientNitro. See Bold Ogilvy. And the list goes on.
Part of the problem in these situations, of course, is that agencies are under increased scrutiny because they are expected to be even more creative when they are unencumbered by client involvement. But, if history is any guide, client involvement just might not be such a bad thing after all when it comes to agency self-promotion.
The other part of the problem is that we, as an industry, can’t help help but trash the competition every chance we get. The moral of the story, then, is that no matter what sort of self-promotion an agency does, it’s likely to be met with sarcasm, snark, cynicism and mockery.
The latest entry in agency self-promotion comes from Fort Worth, Texas-based GCG Marketing which just released a beatnick poet/rap-style video that’s filled with all the usual superlatives and buzzword bingo you’d expect from an agency pimping itself. It’s not necessarily the fact that anything said in this video is untrue. The problem is that it, and other work like it, simply brings to light the mostly inconsequential, insignificant and irrelevant nature of an ad agency and what it stands for. In the greater scheme of things, advertising is pure puffery when compared to the important things in life that really matter.
And when an agency calls attention to the inconsequential, the insignificant and the irrelevant, it simply devalues the subject matter even further. It’s akin to watching two siblings fight over an heirloom your grandmother left you until it is torn apart into pieces that slowly fall to the ground as you all, bickering children included, realize the memory it represented is now forever tarnished. It’s truly that painful.
So please, agencies, do what you do best: create sustainable, inspiring ideas for others. The result of that creativity are what should act as your ongoing self-promotional effort. Not a platitude-filled music video.
