Peeking Behind the Ad Agency Curtain

The daily interactions between people that occur in any workplace shape that organization’s culture, and make it a desirable place to work – or not. The daily struggle to create and maintain quality products and/or services is always a push-pull between people with different viewpoints, and sometimes opposing senses of what will work and what won’t.

      This is especially true in an advertising agency, where the sum total of the firm’s worth lies in its ability to operate as a team to deliver strategically targeted, consistently high quality creative work, which in turn must effectively sell its clients’ goods and services.

      “The Pitch,” a new weekly TV series on AMC, attempts to give us an inside view of this world of advertising agencies. My initial impression is that it did an okay job of it within the confines of a one-hour time slot.

      Filmed like most other reality TV shows with ever-present cameras hovering over participants’ shoulders, two ad agencies are pitted against one another in pursuit of a new piece of business.

      There is much truth in the broadcast: the tension, the petty jealousies, the short fuses, the preening egos, and the prickliness. But there’s also the whirlwind excitement of throwing crazy ideas against the wall in the hope that one will stick and ultimately become the killer idea that wins the account. And then there's the jubilation and profound sense of relief that comes with winning the account.

The Human Element

The larger message of the show lies in that human interaction, the quest for the right chemistry, both between the agency and its prospective client, as well as internally within the agency among the people who work long hours under a tight deadline to deliver winning work.

      “The Pitch” does a great job of capturing that tension, the sleepless nights and long days, and the death spiral feeling during the final days and hours leading up to “the pitch.” We’re reminded with on-screen chyrons how many days or hours are left as the creative teams scramble to put the finishing touches on the idea they hope will win.

      The “sneak preview” of “The Pitch,” which ran (appropriately) last Sunday night as a lead-in to “Mad Men,” pits WDCW of Los Angeles against McKinney of Durham, NC, for the Subway breakfast account. (The show’s regular slot will be Mondays at 9:00.)

      The prospective client is headquartered in Milford, CT, so both agencies had to fly considerable distances to meet (jointly, simultaneously and awkwardly) their prospective client who outlines the assignment. They return a week later with hoped-for knock-their-socks-off ideas to close the deal.

      As the story unfolds, Subway has already started serving breakfast, but is unsatisfied with sales. So this assignment targets a younger demographic – 18-to 24-year-olds – which they believe holds the most promise for growth.

      The Chief Marketing Officer at Subway is the guy who will ultimately judge the winner. I don’t envy the competitors because he seems like a tough customer able to maintain a good poker face.

      The sense of panic sets in immediately back in their home shops. McKinney ropes in its younger staff because they’re members of the target demographic. These kids look like they’ve been out of college for a couple of years, at most. Their ideas are rough, but intriguing.

What’s Missing?

A key element of the process that’s missing, probably because it’s not as sexy as the creative process, is the strategizing that always occurs before any creative work can begin.

• Who’s the target audience – specifically and generally?
• What do we know about them and their breakfast preferences?
• What are their media preferences?
• There’s an implicit assumption from the get-go that the creative product will be TV advertising, which assumes the target watches TV. If so, how do they watch: with finger poised over mute buttons at commercial breaks? When do they watch?
• What kinds of peer pressures determine their buying habits?
• What excites them, and what turns them off?

Answering these and related questions guide the media planning and strategy that help center the creative effort and avoid the problem of ineffective advertising down the road. But these agencies apparently just skipped ahead, riding on their assumptions.

      McKinney’s chief creative officer is an unsmiling killjoy who seems to like none of his team’s ideas. While bullying them, he delights in knocking down a lot of plausible approaches while offering no guidance or suggestions. Perhaps that’s his style, but for a business that thrives on good relationships among team members, his method strikes me as cold and counter-productive.

      “The Pitch” spends more time on McKinney – probably because they are the ultimate winners. We get a good flavor of the creative back-and-forth that is the heart of the ad business: the kicking around of crazy ideas in a conference room and the excitement when something feels just right.

      The winning idea involves a rapper, Mac Lethal, who writes a clever rap lyric that the McKinney team videotapes in a local Subway shop. McKinney goes one step further bringing the rapper to the pitch. As they close their presentation, he enters the room, surprises the client, and raps praises for Subway. The client grins for the first time.

      The closing scenes accurately portray the results back at their home offices – the McKinney offices exploding into cheers at the news, while the WDCW team plays basketball and talks philosophically, though not credibly, about not playing to win.

      It’s an entertaining reality TV show, but not the full story. It glamorizes the business, as seems to be its intent, with none of the downside of working in an ad agency: the slow-paying clients and subsequent cash flow problems, the lost accounts, and the impossible-to-please clients. Take “The Pitch” with a big grain of salt and enjoy it.

The Leadership Lessons of George Washington

Given the choice between working for a manager who operates in a top-down fashion issuing orders without benefit of alternative opinions, versus one who seeks a diversity of input, most of us would prefer to work for the latter. I dare say, too, that the latter type is more likely to be successful in the long run, by a number of measures.

      Would you judge George Washington a successful leader? Do we know why he was successful?

      There are few historic leaders that garner as many clichés as George Washington. The “Father of our Country” is credited for winning the American War for Independence, as well as providing the right vision at the right time to help guide the establishment of our Constitution, and serving as our first president, setting the standard for all those that followed.

      But it was a book, Washington's Crossing, by David Hackett Fischer, that really opened my eyes to the man’s truly distinctive leadership qualities.

      In school, we learned the abbreviated and hackneyed story of Washington. I don’t recall delving into the specifics of his character, what made him a great leader.

      Fischer’s book covers a brief chunk of the history of the Revolutionary War, from December 1776 to the following spring. In four to five months, the Continental Army, under the astute and wise leadership of Washington, reversed the fortunes of the Continentals and changed the course of the war. By comparing the leadership style of Washington to that of his counterparts, Gen. Sir William Howe and, more specifically, Gen. Charles Cornwallis, we learn why Washington really was a great leader. 

Shifting to Offense

To briefly recap the story, the British army chased the Americans out of Long Island and Manhattan, into and across New Jersey in the waning weeks of 1776. The rebels’ fortunes looked dismal as they crossed the Delaware River and made winter camp in Pennsylvania.

      As the year approached its end, the British and their Hessian allies prepared to continue its march into Pennsylvania with the goal of overwhelming and occupying Philadelphia, the Continental capital.

      But with a bold and highly risky strategy, Washington took the offensive, taking his ragtag army back across the ice-choked Delaware on Christmas night, surprising and overwhelming the Hessian camp in Trenton the following morning.

      Two days later, they fended off the reinforcing Brits and again went on the offensive by attacking the British stronghold at Princeton. The two successful battles really did turn the tide of the war in at least three important ways.

      First, the victories provided both the Continental army and the Continental Congress with their first major success of the war and an important boost in confidence. Second, they helped recruit badly needed fresh troops while drawing equally critical supplies. Third, British and Hessian armies’ losses badly shook their confidence, from the officer corps to the rank and file, and put them off-balance and on the defensive.

      Their victories put the Americans on the offense, where they would remain for the balance of the war. By the spring of 1777, opposition leaders in Parliament in London began arguing that it was time to pull out of the conflict. Parliament was reluctant to grant Howe’s desperate requests for supplemental troops and supplies.

      Through the winter and early spring months of 1777, Americans continually harassed the opposition in the so-called “forage wars” of New Jersey, preventing the British and Hessians from obtaining critical feed for their horses and thereby reducing their mobility – the equivalent of denying gasoline and diesel supplies to a modern army. 

Superior Leadership Style

Through it all, as the Fischer repeatedly illustrates, it was Washington’s superior leadership style that made the difference. In one passage, he wrote:

“…Cornwallis imposed his plan from the top down, against the judgment of able inferiors, and prepared to attack in the morning. [Meanwhile,] Washington in his council of war welcomed the judgment of others and presided over an open process of discovery and decision that yielded yet another opportunity. In the night, Washington disengaged his forces from an enemy only a few yards away, and an exhausted American army found the will and strength to make another night march toward Princeton.”

You can sense the rigidly hierarchical style of the professional British general, bound up in the traditions of his army, while not brooking any alternative ideas or input from his officer corps, blindly moving ahead with his own plan.

      Washington came from a different stock, with a far more democratic army and officer corps. It would have been anathema of him to ignore or not seek the thoughts and ideas of his senior officers. And when he did, time and again it made the difference between victory and defeat.

      The more effective presidents over the years have been those that assume the role of senior executive – Lincoln, Kennedy and Reagan come to mind – presidents who surrounded themselves with a diversity of viewpoints, and sought the full range of opinions and insights before reaching a conclusive and final decision. The less effective presidents have been those that wasted precious time to build and reach consensus among their advisors. Or, conversely, those that led without benefit of alternative viewpoints and ideas.

      Washington’s is a leadership style that endures and remains highly applicable in a range of modern and conventional challenges. Clearly, in this way, George Washington established the model for the ideal leader, not just in politics, but also in the military and business.