Before news broke he was joining Deloitte, former McCann Melbourne managing director Adrian Mills penned a passionate piece for AdNews on the impact of consultancies on the creative industry. Read the full story here.
It appeared in the April edition of AdNews in print. Every issue of the monthly magazine has exclusive features, profile interviews and content that aren't usually available online. If you don't subscribe, you're missing out. You can download a digital version of AdNews and subscribe to the premium print edition here.
In Australia, at this point in time, it must be observed that consultancies have a different product to that which the genuine creative agencies sell. At McCann, we like to create ideas that feed into the cultural capital. You know, the work that makes people feel something.
These ideas can often times be powered by digital platforms, informed by data and delivered in a way that a consultancy might be able to also reach the market with, but the product is still very different. Until they really get serious about creativity, the consultancy skill set will lean more to what David Golding recently described in the UK’s Campaign as “collateral”.
I’m yet to see creative work come from a consultancy in Australia that looks anywhere like the kind of best practice creative that a McCann, BBDO or Leo Burnett might create. They, like the media agencies before them, will fail to genuinely join the creative class until they hire world-class creative professionals and create an environment for them to thrive in. By creative professionals, I don’t just mean the best writers and art directors; they’ll also need strategists and suits that know how to make this kind of work.
So my opinion (for what it’s worth), is that there isn’t an impact on the creative landscape in Australia. Perhaps McCann’s data team can work out the share of wallet they’re currently taking away from the creative method while they pursue a collateral approach, but it would be relatively meaningless.
All that said, it would be foolish to underestimate the good consultancies; they are very good businesses. However, it would be similarly short-sighted to underestimate the good agencies.