IPG-Omnicom’s Silence on Creative Is Deafening

This is a big week for people who love cost synergies—IPG and Omnicom have gotten a step closer to conglomerating with yesterday's thumbs-up from shareholders. Every time I see an update to this story, I scan for mentions of anything creative hidden away in all the exciting new capabilities that InterpubliCom will offer. It’s not in their statements; it’s barely mentioned on investor calls. Unless I missed a memo since I left an IPG agency, isn’t that what we do? Use creativity to solve problems for brands? So if I’m an employee, or a client, what is there to be excited about with a merger like this? Efficiencies? Data? AI? Shareholder value? I remember the first time I knew I wanted to increase shareholder value for a living. It’s why I get out of bed in the morning! I’m not sure why we’re all treating the data and AI-ification of creative as a foregone conclusion instead of the giant, waving red flag that it is. Since no one seems to be offering a defense of creatives, I felt compelled to write about this. (But I’m an art director, so god help us.) Omni-Public says we can expect annual savings of $750 million. Better data, some AI efficiencies, some redundancies. Sure, but my guess is that doesn’t get you all the way to the big number. Based on my own proprietary and highly accurate “mentions of creative per investor call” analysis, I can guess which areas will make up the balance of these savings. The creative process is slow, inefficient, and as we write, design, and test out our thinking, it sometimes reveals flaws in the work that preceded it. We solve problems, but we also cause them. I’m starting to wonder if the silhouette from the Mad Men intro was actually thrown from the roof. Look, I get why creative is an easy target. If you think of us as just “words and pretty pictures” people, then of course our numbers on the balance sheet are hard to justify. Forget that brands are bringing creatives in-house at record numbers, and that new, brand-forward category entrants are causing major headaches for companies like Coca-Cola. (And Pepsi can’t just acquire every new Poppi.) The industry, it seems, has decided that this is the way advertising needs to be. Taking our time to think was an error. Personalization is king. And our abilities should be measured by the quantity and speed of our output. But these holding companies are building on shaky ground. We’re one weird billionaire takeover, one social media ban, or one class action AI lawsuit away from major changes to the ad landscape. And in reducing creativity to an afterthought, they risk making themselves obsolete. First, they’ll accelerate consumer fatigue with a glut of content. Does a brand really need 500,000 customized images to share on social media? I’m not arguing against AI or efficiency here (I started in studio—do you know how much time I’ve wasted cutting out people’s hair for comps?) but we make more content because the platforms tell us we need more content, and we trust their black-box algorithms to balance the stuff audiences don’t want to see with the stuff they do. The more low-quality content we pump out, the more we tip that scale in the wrong direction. And personalization won’t matter if no one is paying attention. (If I were a strategist, I’d put a killer stat here.) Second, they’ll either overwork or lay off the very people who can save them. A Wall Street Journal article from back in December cited one brand using AI to reduce a three-week storyboard process to three days. That speed could mean creatives will have more time to iterate and explore concepts, but my gut says these already overworked teams will just be expected to manage more projects with less time to properly execute each. And, be honest, despite the proliferation of all these cool new tools, does anyone really think we’re experiencing a creative renaissance? As the head-rolling continues, we’ll see burned-out, disenfranchised talent continue to change the industry from the outside. Holding companies will lay off creatives who will start agencies. They’ll fire strategists who will build their own brands. And finally, with everyone gone and InterOmniGroup having achieved peak efficiency, some lone executive will look up and say, “Wait. If my agency’s process is based on tools that brands also have access to—or can build themselves—why on Earth do they need us?” Will any of that happen? Who knows, I’m just a creative. But we’re in a time of major uncertainty, and I don’t think success will come from rewiring our entire processes to have less time to think. For now, out here on the front lines, the discarded and disillusioned are getting work in whatever ways they can. Former big agency talent and brands that recognize that the job is about more than “pumping out content” are finding one another, and we’ll continue to run circles around the big shops.

Voice

IPG-Omnicom’s Silence on Creative Is Deafening

Their merger will radically change the industry. Just not the way they think it will

Patrick Simkins

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