The Advertising Agency & the Myth of Intermediation
The paradox of The Holding Company
Primary Audience: Agency,
Secondary Audience: Brand,
Site Tags: Advertising, Historical
The Advertising Agency & the Myth of Intermediation
The What
A quasi-fiction take written after after a creationist stream of thought. It purports to explore the dynamic between advertising agencies, their brand clients, and what emerged as the trend of super merger agencies, ie holding companies. The accuracy is more rule-of-thumb, than historical. But it speaks to a sector dynamic that I don’t think gets much discussion.
The issues with holding companies are not exclusive to the advertising sector. But they have arrived at a moment of crystallization. It’s my belief, that the ad agency within a holding company doesn’t act in its own interest the way an independent agency would. Rather, it acts in the interest of the holding company, this makes sense of-course given both businesses are one in-the-same. The issue is, it is a very diffused interest to act on behalf of. The effects of this mode of business are residual, and hard to quantify, but there are arguments (or allegations) that there is a downshift in the quality of trade by all those within the arena of creative advertising. Anyway, thanks for reading. 📖䷊❖🕊
The Myth
The Setup
In the beginning, the world was a primordial soup.
Sometime after that— there was The Brand. And shortly after that there was The Agency. The Brand was in need of selling its wares, and The Agency was a shop perfectly positioned to help with this need.
This is how the myth works
The Brand has a need
The Agency provides The Brand with the Gift of Spin
The Gift of Spin is then placed into The River of Awareness.
"Eventually" through means that are stills unclear….
The River of Awareness returns 'sales' to The Brand.
SIDE-NOTE: The River Of Awareness is also known as The River of Media Res. But, also, sometimes it's just called Media for short. 👀
In the earliest of days, this arrangement worked out well. These were the 1940s, the good years.
In these days The Agency would not only provide its Spin to the Agency. But it would also do the due dillegence of carrying The Spin to the Rivers of Awareness.
And all was well.
Until the 60's
Then one day in the 1960s, the world had carried forward and arrived into a state of cosmic modernity.
And in this arrival, and exchange of what was called FREE LOVE, the Market shook. They didn't know what was different before. OR quite what was different afterwards. But during that shake, The Brand saw something it did NOT like. It was a glance of impropriety. A glance of intermediation.....
From that day forward
From that day forward, The Brand decided it would only pay fees, regardless of the cost of Media. That was the day The Commission Model died.
And although The Brand and The Agency were able to patch things up, and continue working with one another- from that day on there was an air of contention in the relationship. And neither would regard each other so lightly.
And all was okay, atleast for a bit.
Until the 80's
Then one day in the 1980s, the world had carried forward and arrived into a state of Neon Electronic modernity.
And in this exchange of what was called THE BULL MARKET, the Market shook. And something changed, but everyone was unsure what. They didn't know what was different before. OR quite what was different afterwards. But during that shake, The Brand saw something it did NOT like. It was a glance of impropriety. A glance of intermediation.....
From that day forward
From that day forward, The Brand decided all Media Buys would happen out of house.
And although The Brand and The Agency were able to sort things out, and work together again, the contention in the relationship had become more obvious than before. And it was especially obvious in how they spoke to each other on the phone, or how they looked at each other in the hallways, when one or the other was leaving.
And things were about as well as could be expected....
Until the 90's
Then one day in the 1990s, the world had carried forward and arrived into a state of Insipid Modernity
And in this arrival and exchange of what was called an ERA OF GLOBALIZATION, the market did not shake, but it hummed. And in that shake, it was The Agency that saw something it had never seen before. A vision of faux-intermediation that would return both the dividends of handling, and the dividends of commission and much more.
So what happened
The Agency went down to the Bureau of Registrations to change its name to Holding Company. But not only this, it also wanted the ability to adopt itself.
The Bureau admittedly thought this was a bit strange, but The Agency's various legal professionals were able to quash any concerns
From this point on The Holding Company was both its own father, and its own son. And not only that, it was also able to adopt others into its strange, self-fulfilling relationship.
And with this new affinity for self-hood.
The Holding Company was able to take on the role of multiple Shops
It was able to provide services to The Brand under multiple fronts
And in this collective-bargaining-power' it was able to reap commission, without reaping commission.
In the Middletimes
To The Brand everything looked the same as before. It would travel from shop to shop, and although each shop had a new last name, they looked the same as before. In fact, each storefront window was notably shiny. And the brand logo for each shop had very well defined bold outlines.
And although The Brand regarded all of this with suspicion, because historically that was the nature of the relationship, there was no real reason for alarm, or real reason not to procure all of its services from The Holding Company.
And every once in a while The Brand would find a new shop, that provided a new and exciting service. But before long, it would get adopted and show up the next day with The Holding Company's last name.
The Nowtimes
Then one day in the 2020s, the world had carried forward and arrived into a state of post-knowledge and post-being.
And in this arrival, and exchange of what was called POST-SENTIENT, the Market shook. And in that shake, nothing changed. No knowledge was gleamed. No knowledge was left to gleam. And everything just stayed on the same track as before. Although by this time The Holding Company was a far cry from The Agency it once was. It was fat and skinny and skinny all at the same time. And it spent most of its time sitting around the machinations of its own creation. A large cauldron pot. No one knew what was inside. It would stop only to uncurl its finger in the direction it advised The Brand was best to go.
And The Brand, never got on well with any of The Holding Companys sur-children, but by this point everyone was accustomed to not speaking much anymore.
And these days the Rivers of Awareness returned more sales than ever before. But, the wealth had to be thinly spread across a vast array of The Holding Company's children, nieces, and cousins, and half-sons. All of which was of course done under the so-called Agency Store Myth of Disintermediation.
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