Top Of Mind

YOU are the Ad agency of the year!!

YOU may not know it, YOU may not want it and YOU may not even give a hoot about it, but YOU have been named Agency of the Year by AdAge magazine (an Advertising Industry trade magazine) in it’s annual awards issue back in December. And there is nothing, nothing YOU can do about it.

In the ending days of 2006, we have seen and commented on how TIME Magazine’s person of the year went to “YOU.” And what do YOU know, that made us all feel special and loved. Awww..

Obviously TIME Magazine had it’s reasons (cough cough), but at least they were original about it. No one has ever nominated “YOU,” the unwashed masses (as AdAge quaintly puts it) of the internet as the person of the year or one of importance. So when a publication as respected as AdAge comes along and also nominates “YOU,” as Agency of the year, then YOU know that YOU truly must be special and even blessed.

This has been bugging me since December, but only now can I get down to writing it. But first allow me to pause here a bit and offer a belated congratulations to AdAge for it’s originality of thought.

So what did you unknowingly do to deserve this accolade? Two words, or is it one? YouTube. Specifically Videos like the Diet Coke-Mentos.

While I was one of the million of people who did view the video, and thought that what an ingenious thing to do, at the end of it, was neither persuaded to drink Diet Coke nor pop a few Mentos. This spewed, excuse me, a slew of copy-cat “experiment videos,” of varying degrees of taste which did attract a lot of views. Never-the-less, that does not make YOU Ad Agency of the year.

The article that talks about why they nominated “YOU,” as the agency of the year, here. They must have had a head start on the eggnog way ahead of anyone else. That is the only reasonable explanation that I can think of for AdAge to come up with “YOU,” as the Agency of the year.

Actually, I can think of another reason though. Namely it’s their attempt to resurrect the “Death of the Advertising Agency,” mantra that they have been chanting for the last couple of years.

Well, AdAge is right. The Ad Agency is indeed dying, terminal, checking out, in ICU – but not quite yet. That is why a lot of traditional ad agencies are moving their eggs into other baskets – activations, consumer relations, public relations. You name it, the agencies are moving there.

Most agency net-works are in the process of transforming themselves from Advertising Agencies to Marketing Communications Companies – or whatever they want to call themselves, but they are diversifying into other areas.

But as long as the cost per rating point is most efficient on Television (as opposed to other mediums), there will still be need for the traditional Ad Agency, which can do a spanking storyboard and a catchy tagline. It won’t last of course, but it’s gonna be around for a while yet, so hold off the – “EVERYBODY PANIC, Ad Agencies are dying/dead” cry for now.