Excellent post.

I flagged this article to write about as well and haven’t had an opportunity to do so yet.

This subject is on the minds of many around the agency world. (Well, at least those who are wanting to evolve with the times.) Jaffe is pretty dead-on with how they’re approaching it. Goodby has made no secret of how they’re creating hybrid teams. You can bet that the top digital agencies are doing this as well.

Having spent the first part of my career in traditional agencies with traditional structures, then moving to a top promotions agency that used a non-traditional approach to creating ideas and now working at a digital agency with a very non-traditional approach, I can attest to the ideas getting bigger and better when you mix in smart people from different areas of expertise.

The people that don’t embrace this approach will soon be left to being the production teams/execution arms on the ideas that the ones who do use it come up with (if they’re lucky). Odds are though that their agencies will fade away from ignoring the changes taking shape at the agencies who are “getting it.” Just read some of the Tweets coming out of adtech today from the panel on modern agencies.

Also…

Very glad to hear that you’re treating your agency like a true partner. That’s important to getting the best ideas brought forward. A collaborative approach all around, including getting closer to the people using your products/services/etc., is required to being a great modern marketer.

Thanks again for sharing your thinking here. It’s good to read things from “the other side” of the agency / client relationship and even more so when we’re tracking along the same lines. Ha!

And I’ve never met Jaffe but from his bio, I know he was Director of Interactive Media at TBWA/Chiat/Day. I’m sure he was involved with the traditional creative process while employed there.

I welcome and encourage debate on this blog but I prefer if you attack the idea instead of attacking the person.

ok, so he wrote a couple of books about ideas related to the industry, but this blather is all a bunch of hullabaloo.

give the man credit since he did manage to plug his agency in the ad age article so i’ll award him a few extra points for that. however, it makes one wonder if he conceived this article around that and then figured out a way to make some bold inane though attention-getting proclamation about the state of creativity in the ad industry.

can someone also please help to decipher his marbles in mouth writing style. just what in the hell does the following sentence mean? “…gravitate closer to the transformation of strategy into actionable solutions and/or represent a specific specialization…” doesn’t ad age have any editors on staff?

speaking of creative titles, a title is just that, nothing more than a title. it really matters what you do with it. at the very least his article managed to interrupt things a bit. chief interrupter indeed.