Hasta La Creative!

So, are you tired of hearing about Cannes and Publicis and Marcel? If you happen to have made the trip to France this year, are you ready to come home and wash the rose-flavored puke off your shoes?

Well get ready, because Monday is gonna be interesting. In what appears to be an all-staff memo sent out late last night, Arthur Sadoun committed to clearing the air in the best possible way: with an open-forum Twitter Q&A.

You’ve almost definitely heard about this already, but here’s the full memo (which Publicis PR kindly provided to a few select “trade journalists”):

Bonjour,

Cannes is coming to an end, and I think you’ll agree that it has been an eventful week!

I wanted to come back to all of you and hopefully bring a bit of clarity from all of the noise.

But before that, I want to personally congratulate the teams whose incredible work has been celebrated so far. We already have several grand prix and campaigns that have had a real impact for our clients thanks to the exceptional talent behind them.

Of course, one of the biggest pieces of news from this week was our announcement of Marcel, the world’s first professional assistant powered by AI and machine learning. I know from many of you that there are a lot of questions, so I didn’t want the week to end without answering some of the big ones.

First, let me be clear: at Publicis Groupe we stand for great work. The Marcel platform is being created to make that work even better, by developing new types of collaboration that will lead to creativity without borders and without limits. Creativity is our raison d’être and Marcel will allow us to climb higher.

Second, to build this extremely powerful tool, which will allow each and every one of you to fuel our best creative work, we need to focus 100% on making it a reality.

That’s why we’re shifting our promotional budget to reinvest in our people and the future of our company. So, we are taking a pause from awards shows, festivals and industry events for 365 days. But make no mistake, when that time is done, we will be back stronger than ever before.

Third, I know many of you are asking how our clients are reacting. I’m excited to tell you that their early feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. And it’s not just our clients. Other partners have expressed not only their support, but also their belief that this has the power to be transformational. Earlier this week, I was speaking with Twitter CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey who called our initiative “ambitious and disruptive.” He said, “without a doubt, Publicis Groupe’s Marcel platform will be a game-changer for the industry.”

Finally, nothing great comes easy and we didn’t take this decision lightly. But I’m convinced that this is the right move. The only thing that will derail us is a lack of communication. And that’s my responsibility. Which is why in the next days and weeks we will provide all of you with more information, Q&A’s, updates and opportunities to get involved.

As a first step, starting Monday I will be on Twitter to answer all of your questions – the good, the bad and the ugly – openly and transparently. Be as candid as possible; use a pseudonym, use a friend’s account, or get in touch personally … Whatever you’re most comfortable with, I want to hear from you.

Voilà, I can’t wait to continue the conversation with all of you.

Amitiés,

Arthur.

Yesterday we asked you, our angry, thirsty readers, to give us your honest-to-fucking-God opinions on Publicis Groupe’s “No Silo, No Promo, No Can Do” announcement that it would be skipping all awards shows and related events for more than a year.

And you did not disappoint!*

Of course, most of the takes you shared were very negative: the first we received simply read, “Fuck you, Arthur.” But there really was some nuance here, despite the general consensus that awards shows are ridiculous and silly and there are way too many of them.

Regarding Arthur Sadoun (who told AdAge today that he’s very surprised by the backlash), one reader called him “a showman,” adding, “A few years ago he proclaimed Publicis would become a leader at Cannes.  For two years he tracked progress. But when facts got in the way. He changed the story. The ‘Power of One’ was born.”

Sadoun had already started souring on Cannes back in 2015, when he told Digiday, “We reduced our participation this year by more than 50 percent. … The money we’re saving is going somewhere else.” That sounds oddly familiar.

Now, the jokes:

Train ride from Paris to Cannes: 25 euros.  Showing up to announce you won’t be back next year: Prrriceless.

That was pretty good. But AdAge tells us, via their own internal calculators, that Publicis will save $2.2 million on Cannes 2018 … which is approximately 5% of the combined salaries of Arthur Sadoun, Maurice Levy and Mark Tetssel, according to numbers we just pulled out of our ass.

*the birth story of Marcel*

client: we need business results.

Publicis: ok, great! So we took the money you paid us and poured it into a half-baked A.I. for ourselves. We call it Marcel…Mark felt a little too on the nose. We think it will help you, but if it doesn’t, it will certainly help us.

Heh, nice one again. Marcel can’t be all smoke and mirrors though, right? One former Publicis New York employee who was bold enough to use her IRL Facebook account to comment on the former post wrote:

Part of what Marcel promises is to connect [frustrated] employees with teams and projects they’re interested in within the Groupe network, a basic function that humans in “Talent Development” could not seem to grasp during my time with the company. It’s a solid solution to a chronic clusterfuck.

That was unquestionably the most positive take on our new AI overlord. Others had some less optimistic things to say about Marcel.

…a talking robot that seems to do what the internet does … flim flam hiding thinness in thinking … disguised cost cutting to bury the failure of all of the agencies they’ve purchased.

Quite a few people are very skeptical as to whether all this money Publicis plans to save will actually go toward making Marcel the best global French robot network platform he can be. From a self-described senior executive:

The money saved from award shows isn’t going to fund this AI POS. It’s going to the bottom line.

But what if it’s all crazy enough to work? From one reader who really spent some time writing his or her (who are we kidding, his) responses:

Clients care about saving money more than anything. So it’s a bummer, but this will probably get Publicis more attention from clients than winning a bunch of awards.

The idea that they won’t promote themselves is utter bullshit—this announcement is self promotion … in two years, watch them turn it into a case study video and try to win awards for it.

That is maybe a little too believable. OK, so what are the downsides? According to most of the people who addressed this issue, creatives will not be so hot on staying with Publicis knowing that they won’t be formally recognized for their work. One chief creative officer wrote:

Yikes, this is a DISASTER for them. The real battle for these agencies is TALENT … and they just lost.

BREAKING: Recruiters Flooded With Emails From Frantic Publicis Creatives

— ADWEAK (@adweak) June 22, 2017

That tweet is obviously an exaggeration, but this decision—and the fact that Sadoun and other Publicis executives told some clients but didn’t alert their own employees—seems to have cemented the belief that they care about media dollars etc. more than the people making the ads.

By the way, it’s not just creative directors who win at Cannes. Another reader writes:

I’ve seen more than one CMO whose star has risen on Effies, advertiser of the year at The One Show, Marketer of the Year at Cannes, etc. Jim Stengel is a prominent example.

OK, so the main concern is still Publicis losing creative talent. But what about business? Here’s a cry for help from a European executive.

We are already strategizing on how to “protect” our brands from competitors. Of course other holding companies and consultancies will be angling to network with clients at DMEXCO and CES and Mobile World Congress. It will be a lot of work to defend business this way. That’s what we are worried about. Who cares about Marcel?

Will be pretty interesting to see whether that actually happens. Now how do the creatives feel about this move and the way it reflects on their bosses’ opinions of them? A couple of good ones:

Publicis creative girl here on a big global team. No one in our building can answer our questions. The last 24 hours have devolved from eye rolls to angry emails being circulated to people actually taking an hour for lunch. An hour! A couple of senior people left to go home at 4:30 … not exactly a morale booster.

Now let’s get to the heart of it:

We work nights and weekends. We miss time with family and friends in pursuit of pleasing our clients in a rapidly-changing business that all too often is completely thankless. But when we get an award, it’s validation. It’s the notch on the belt that you use to catapult yourself to your next job and to life’s next level. No more eating shitty Thai food because it’s “free” and you couldn’t afford anything else. You can finally afford to take a break, a vacation, some fucking time off. Take away the awards, and you might as well let clients do the work. In some cases, they already are.

Fuck Marcel.

Rant on, sir. And yet, maybe this will just be more of the same:

Dan Wieden doesn’t live going from award show to award show. And somehow his agency survives. Publicis will be just fine.

Yeah, they probably will. But in the meantime, they just pissed off thousands of employees around the world like the creatives above and the Leo Burnett staffers frantically texting their bosses and colleagues this week to figure out what the fuck was going on.

Finally, our favorite:

“Where’s the popcorn?” – us at other holding companies

Let’s do this again next week.

*There were, of course, plenty of tips amounting to “BRING BACK DISQUS,” to which we have to say: you guys all work at ad agencies, right? Do you not understand how these kinds of things work??

[Image via]

Oh hey. Remember last January when Amir Kassaei announced, in a Campaign op-ed, that the world would be seeing a little less of DDB at the 2016 awards shows?

He made sure to note that his employer has “won more Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity than any other network on the planet” while throwing a whole lot of shade at everyone else: “Too many of us in the industry have bought into the idea that winning awards is proof of creative effectiveness, so much so that we’re willing to sacrifice our integrity to get them. And in turn that has lessened the integrity of the awards themselves.”

As we knew then and still know now, his promise was a whole bunch of bullshit.

But it’s worth noting in light of Arthur Sadoun’s announcement yesterday that Publicis Groupe would ban all of its agencies from participating in awards shows, trade shows or any other sort of paid promotional effort until the holding company has finished developing its AI-based global platform Marcel.

He claimed that means Publicis will be completely absent from next year’s Cannes, CES, the Clios, the Effies and every other awards event big or small.

Will he keep his promise? Was this all just a big PR stunt, especially given the fact that Publicis currently lags behind all the other major holding companies in its 2017 Cannes total? What if both things are simultaneously true?

Anyway, now that our anonymous comments have gone to that great troll home in the sky (R.I.P.), we would like to ask everyone reading—especially Publicis employees—to tell us what you really think about Marcel.

The topic has already gone somewhat “viral” on Fishbowl, the app that aspires to be a gossip magnet for people in various industries including advertising.

Some takes that are mildly hot:

“Marcel, please tap into your network and give high fives to all former Publicis employees who are so grateful to have left at this moment.”

“Am I the only one relieved we are going to stop wasting time and money over awards and schmooze fests? Thanks Marcel.”

“Marcel is just vaporware that will never live up to its billing.”

“Bonjour, Marcel! Can you connect me with a recruiter.”

So far, the only reader to weigh in via our tip box (which is still 100% anonymous, by the way) had a very succinct response: “FUCK YOU.”

Feel free to use your Facebook thing or the tip box on the right.

Who cares about advertising awards? Not Arthur Sadoun.

Well, that’s probably not completely accurate. But Sadoun and his fellow Publicis Groupe leaders DID announce today that they care more about their new AI-powered “professional assistant” platform Marcel than they do about any of next year’s big industry events.

According to an internal memo we received today, this is part of a larger effort to find “cost synergies,” or ways to save money.

Sadoun conducted two related interviews that ran today: one in which he talked about the platform with Adweek and one in which he confirmed to AdAge that the entire network will be skipping Cannes, CES, etc. next year.

But it won’t just be the big awards shows. Publicis will effectively cut all paid promotional efforts until after next year’s Cannes festival, which follows Marcel’s planned debut at VivaTech in Paris next June. Sadoun told Adweek this means avoiding “anything that has to do with promoting ourselves in order to make sure that our people and our money is put in the right place.”

And that’s not up for debate, either. So Snapchat and Facebook will be even more dominant at Cannes next year.

Here is the memo written by Chicago-based Re:Sources CEO Frank Voris, whose company went through a large round of automation-related layoffs earlier this year.

Everyone,

As you know, Arthur had his first mgmt. session on Saturday in Paris. He clearly laid out his vision and we aligned on several actions that will be communicated in the near term.

Focus areas:

1) Talent / People
2) Client centric organization
3) Own the transformation space
4) Technology at the core
5) Growth
6) Reinvent our cost structure

With that said, you will start to hear about his “Platform” strategy, Tuesday from Cannes. However, these plans are aggressive … both regarding magnitude and time to market. For perspective, the GROUPE is looking for 2.5% cost synergies for 2018 and will be ELIMINATING all Award / Trade shows for the next year. As a result, ReSources will not participate in any Vendor conferences, Industry tradeshows and/or Award shows effective July 1st. This is mandatory and exceptions will not be approved.

As you recall, I have set a tone for positive Change. The Industry and the GROUPE is in a state of constant change … all for the better. As a result, we need to plow forward and continue on our journey to be a value added partner for our sister Agencies. The only thing in life that is controllable is GREAT performance day in and day out. Deliver “Excellence Through Partnership” daily and we will be rewarded with a bigger and better position within the GROUPE.

Happy to discuss if you have any questions … Award / Trade show ban is effective for the entire GROUPE, not just ReSources.

Competitive eater Takeru Kobayashi stars in Fitzgerald and Co.’s new spot for Checkers/Rally’s, promoting the chain’s new $1 fries offering by doing what he does best.

If you’re unfamiliar, Kobayashi is the Japanese competitive eater who won the Nathan’s Fourth of July Hot Dog Eating Competition sixth consecutive years before a contractual dispute prevented him from competing. He showed up to the event in 2010 and was arrested after appearing on stage. Kobayashi also holds the world record for eating 110 bunless hot dogs in 10 minutes at the New York State Fair.

The spot opens with a warning not to attempt what you’re about to witness. From there, it’s pretty much just Kobayashi stuffing his face with fries for 60 seconds.

While certainly impressive in its way, we’re not sure it’s the best way to advertise the fast food chain. On the one hand, yeah, all those fries would have only cost Kobayashi five bucks. On the other hand, many people will probably find it pretty gross (although not nearly as gross as eating 57 cow brains in 15 minutes, another Kobayashi record), as competitive eating doesn’t exactly have the most broad appeal. Those viewers may stay away from such indulgences as a result. But hey, what do we know? Maybe there’s a correlation between Checkers customers and competitive eating fans.

Credits:

Advertising Agency: Fitzgerald & Co., Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Chief Creative Officer: Noel Cottrell
Executive Creative Directors: Mitch Bennett, Wes Whitener
Associate Creative Director: Jean Tanis
Creative Director: Dave Gordon
Copywriter: Max Schein
Art Director: Joe Abruzzo
Director, Editor: Tom Rittenhouse
Head of Integrated Production: Christine Sigety
Producer: David Berngartt
Chief Media Officer: Liz Daney
Group Media Director: Anna Sherrill
Assistant Media Director, Digital: Jessica Fergen
Senior Connections Strategist, Social: Tyler Baugh
Connections Strategist, Social: Lauren Gourley
Managing Director: Evan Levy
Group Account Director: Jeff Quick
Management Supervisor: Madison Gargan
Assistant Account Executive: Lauren Edwards
Project Manager: Allison Ponce

For whatever reason, we’ve seen a lot of internal memos lately. Most are from agency CEOs announcing new business developments or, in one now-famous case, praising team members with some language that may have rubbed others the wrong way.

Group creative director Daniel Bremmer (book here), who is leaving his job at 360i after nearly three years, had a slightly different take.

In a lengthy note announcing that he and his fiance are moving to Iceland, he essentially told other creatives to keep fighting the good fight while also kind of defending agency leaders who are, in their own way, going through the same shit as everyone else.

Here are some segments of the note, subject line “Goodbye, just short of 1080i.”

360i x 3 = 1080i (I’ve been drinking the curiosity kool-aid my whole life.)

If I hung around for three more months, it’ll make three years that I’ve been braving the commute from glorious Greenpoint to shitty TriBeCa to hang out with you fine folks. It’s hard to write a goodbye email for this when you’re as bad at expenses and as good at procrastinating as I am, so here’s two of them:

The short version:

My fiance and I are moving to Reykjavik. I’m going to be running the creative department of a great little agency called Islenska (Islenska.is). It’s Icelandic for “Icelandic,” so finding it on google is super fun. If you find yourself in Reykjavik, and I strongly suggest you do, please don’t hesitate to hit me up. I’ll be happy to share my knowledge of the most geographically concentrated awesomeness this planet has.

The long-winded version:

(This is for the creatives)

There’s a lot of change going on. A lot of people are leaving, both by their own volition and otherwise. Budgets are smaller, timelines are shorter, briefs are often becoming novels about media units, our network infrastructure is third-world and it’s really fucking hard to do great work when you’re stretched this thin and all the client wanted was a link post. Let’s be real. Morale is about on par with smell of the men’s room on 16 in the afternoon. It’s no wonder we get despondent, say “fuck it” and hit the bar.

All that being true, we’re still lucky to be here. We get to wake up every day in one of the greatest cities in the world. The most underpaid junior here makes about what the average family of four makes. (I’m not comparing cost of living, just trying to cast some perspective). We get to stroll into work way past when we’re technically supposed to. We get to wear jeans and t-shirts, say fuck all we want and tell stories in meetings that would make our mothers wash our mouths out with soap, often to the great amusement of our clients. We get paid to wonder, question, and dream. We’re like theoretical physicists without having an intellectual leg to stand on, and our offices have beer taps on every floor. Imagine telling your teenage self that your job is to take a something and conjure up the coolest, funniest, most surprising, bizarre or beautiful way it could come to life. And then, tell them that if we’re lucky, WE GET PAID TO USE OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY TO MAKE OUR IDEAS COME TO LIFE.

Read that again, because it’s real. If you need to, print it out and put it up where you can see it on round 4 of the aforementioned link ad.

I think this is what Rob Schwartz was trying to say in his now-infamous work/life balance email. There’s no denying the suck and there’s no excusing the swirl and indecision that often eats up people’s time and energy for nothing. But when you step back and take a look at the whole thing, even with the crappy bits, we’re lucky to be here. (Rob’s a friend of mine, and he’s got a big damn heart, so I really do think that was just inelegant wording in praising an extreme example of giving a shit about a project.)

This job has always sucked and ruled at the same time. All jobs since the beginning of time contain both sucking and ruling, and that will likely continue until the end of time … It’s up to you to contain the suck and maximize the ruling. And the truth is, that’s not as hard as you think. Here’s a few ways that Alex and I have learned to minimize suckage and maximize making rad shit here:

Is your brief four pages of unintelligible double-speak and media specs? Take a stab at a Get/From/To/By and run it by the strategist. Chances are, they are just doing what they thought was right from their perspective or what they heard, and you can help them understand what you need to get a simple, actionable brief that allows you to make good work.

Does the production estimate far exceed the brief for your rad idea? Sit down with the producer. Tell them the part you care about. Ask them how to get that part done for less. You’ll have to give something to get something, but you could just get an awesome thing for your book.

Is the direction not clear from the client? Ask to be on the call. Seriously. As long as you don’t come off as argumentative, asking questions of the client not only gets to the heart of what they are after, but it sometimes expands their thinking to see it from your perspective. They’re humans doing a job too.

So, to summarize, some people have been leaving 360i, among them Bremmer, senior copywriter Marissa Cuconato, HR director Chantelle Mowbray, CD Corel Theuma and, most prominently, chief creative officer Pierre Lipton. You almost certainly already know that Menno Kluin will replace him on July 1.

But really, as Bremmer tells it, the company is just going through the same sort of stuff as every other “brand” in this odd industry.

We have spent only a very limited time in the creative agency world, but as we understand it, the equation is a good bit like media: you work your ass off and often don’t get recognized for the shit you do. It can be difficult and frustrating (especially if leadership seems disconnected or self-interested), and it’s pretty easy to understand why so many just throw up their hands and go into PR, because have you seen the starting salaries for comms directors? Those numbers will crush your soul.

But then, this is the trajectory you chose for yourself, isn’t it? And it’s still a pretty fucking cool way to make what passes for a living.

Or maybe we’re just feeling a little less cynical than usual today … for whatever reason.

[Pic via Glassdoor]

Gotta give Arthur Sadoun some credit. Like his predecessor Maurice Levy, he knows how to make fun of himself and his ridiculous French accent.

It’s a new day at Publicis, and incoming CEO Sadoun started things off with a very long video about his vision for the future.

Here it is in case you have 9 minutes to spare.

So what’s changing at Publicis? Not a whole lot, it seems.

Sadoun does acknowledge that “transformation”—which must be the European version of “disruption”—is a meaningless buzzword. But the big message here is that he’s doubling down on the Power of One umbrella group approach. “Find efficiencies,” as we all know, means “we can do it cheaper.”

He’s also naming 100 “client leaders” and regional executives. This sounds a lot like what Havas just did, doesn’t it? On culture, it’s three words: BREAK. BOLD. BUILD.

Sadoun explains the definition of “platform” around the 7:35 point, noting that it’s a French word so it can mean whatever the hell he wants.

In other news, did you think Levy was actually ceding authority to Sadoun? LOL.

As reported this morning by Reuters, the outgoing CEO will make more money as chairman—though still nowhere near as much as Sir Martin. Publicis says that he’s still playing an “active role in supporting the transition,” but Reuters notes that advisors told stockholders to vote against Levy’s pay package, calling it “excessive.” Their writeup also implies that the title change is simply a formality and that Levy, not Sadoun, will remain top dog at Publicis Groupe.

But it’s always about who you know, isn’t it?

One current Publicis employee tells us today that things still work that way in the States: “Success at Publicis is achieved via membership in one executive’s fraternity/ sorority of asskissers, rather than actual talent. It accounts for the eye-wateringly high turnover rate.”

Go team!

Full first-person disclosure: I am from South Carolina. The people who made the latest McDonald’s U.K. campaign are not.

Leo Burnett launched the new work earlier this month, and it just attracted the attention of some Palmetto State media outlets, which are very curious about the U.K.’s vision of the way we do things down South.

So, Dollywood is in Tennessee. And cowboy hats are a Texas thing. You know who was from South Carolina, though? James Fucking Brown.

One reader of our former hometown Charleston City Paper notes:

I remember seeing signs for the various states of “American burgers” at Maccies a few years ago. Each and every one looked so hilariously off-base, I wondered it if it weren’t on purpose. I haven’t laughed so much at a sandwich since I was taught to pronounce bologna.

Bless your dang heart, we reckon it might just be on purpose too. The tangy BBQ sauce is right, but where is the cole slaw?

On that note, the Tennessee version looks a bit more like the Florida panhandle. Or Myrtle Beach Bike Week, if we’re still talking Cackalacky. Kenny Powers!

And New York is a baseball town … Which is kind of true since both of our football teams play in Jersey.

We expected these spots to be a little more extreme, honestly. Where are the Civil War re-enactments and the women selling sweetgrass baskets by the side of Highway 17?

Here’s another answer to a timeless question: what do advertising creatives work on in their spare time?

When last we heard from former BBDO VP/creative director Alex Taylor, he and fellow copy guy Hunter Fine had taken to Craigslist to convince a bunch of strangers to try constructing IKEA furniture while tripping on the drugs.

His latest project is a bit more intimate: it’s the story of a man and the poor winter coat onto which he projects all of his anger, insecurity and a general sense of impotence in the face of a cruel and unforgiving world.

Here is “Killing the Coat.”

That was so bleak that we kind of loved it.

Taylor explained to us that he wrote the short late last year before reaching out to director Aaron Stoller of Biscuit, who was into the idea and agreed to shoot it.

The two spent several weeks working on the project along with some friends on the production side of the ad business. They then entered the short into several late 2016 film festivals, and now they’re actively promoting it to get a bit more attention from the old press.

Taylor, who has been a full-time freelancer for several years after working at some of the bigger New York shops, told us “Killing the Coat” isn’t quite autobiographical. But it certainly could be. We’ve been there, too.

Sadly, the garment itself did not survive the shoot.

CREDITS

Directed by:  Aaron Stoller
Written by:  Alex Taylor
Cast:  Landall Goosby
Executive Producer:  Shawn Lacy
Executive Producer:  Holly Vega
Producer:  Michelle Stark
Production Company: Biscuit Filmworks
Director of Photography: Bryan Newman
Assistant Director:  Brad Stevenson
Production Designer:  Robbie Freed
Editor:  Chan Hatcher
Assistant Editor:  Josh Miller
Editorial:  No6
Sound Mix:  Mike Franklin
Mix Assistant:  Aaron Cornacchio
Audio Producer:  Kate Vadnai
Colorist:  Tim Masick

Despite Stephan Sagmeister’s poignant reminder to all fuckheads that they are not, in fact, “storytellers,” the ad industry remains fixated on this word as a catchall for its own product.

On that note, R/GA global CCO and vice chairman Nick Law recently spoke to Australia’s AdNews and did not pull many punches (as is his wont) regarding the current state of the business.

The story he told may strike you as quite familiar: today’s agencies are too stuck in their old ways of doing things and not innovative enough to find a way out of that holding company-shaped box.

Here are some interesting quotes on the creative side of things:

The last time teams [in creative agencies] were innovated was when art directors and copy directors came together.

It’s surprising to us that the common team is still art director and copywriter. That goes back to [Bill] Bernbach. It was an innovation and it resulted in that beautiful VW work with incredible tension, but it’s amazing that was the last time the team was innovated.

R/GA, though, is the exception. Obviously. As you may have heard, Bob Greenberg’s approach is to shake things up every nine years or so in the interest of escaping all those legacy models.

We’re trying to inoculate ourselves against the things that are shrinking the advertising industry, in many cases by attacking the things that are attacking the industry, disrupting the disruptors. If the consultancies are taking the top off our industry, we’re going up against them with a different model. If digital media companies like Facebook are eating the bottom, then we’re getting in the accelerator game.

In other words, the network is upping its strategy game, most recently by hiring Tim Maleeny as executive director of brand and marketing strategy. The former Havas co-MD has some experience on the consultancy side too after recently working to open Heat’s first New York office after that agency was acquired by Deloitte.

Law goes on to describe R/GA as “consultants that ‘make,’” and he has one last strongly worded opinion on the state of ads today.

I hate the laziness of an industry that is telling stories the same way it was 50 years ago. Netflix and HBO have reinvented TV in the last five years, every teenage kid around the world is reinventing storytelling in their own voice and yet advertising is incapable of being influenced by these far more progressive advancements of the grandeur of narrative because they are so stuck in bloated metaphors and tropes of advertising it makes me break out in hives.

What are these new modes of storytelling to which Law alludes? Does he mean cool apps? We think he might mean cool apps.

It’s worth noting that R/GA still makes regular boring old “advertisements,” too.