Tor Myhren, the former creative director of Grey Advertising, was just poached by Apple to be its VP of Marketing Communications. The news has stunned Madison Avenue more than any agency acquisition or new business wins in recent years. And, in the end, it may have more to say about the future of the ad agency model.
This jaw dropping announcement is striking. Myhren is not just a bold-type agency name: He is considered by many to be the best creative director on Madison Avenue. He is best known for accomplishing what other top execs have attempted yet failed to do: transform a once-stodgy and sluggish big shop like Grey into one of advertising's most creative companies. During his time there, the agency created the E*TRADE talking baby, a stream of hits for DirecTV, and its Canon advertising won an Emmy.
I do not recall one other instance of where a top notch creative director joined an Advertiser to head an internal in-house agency. And make no mistake about it. Apple is building an in-house agency and, like everything else it builds, it aims at building the best agency, period. In recent months, it started hiring a slew of first-rate art directors and copywriters, and it’s moving more and more creative assignments in-house from its long-time agency, TBWA. Bringing in Myhren as de-facto creative director of its agency caps the formation of what may be the most awesome creative group anywhere, on or off Madison Avenue.
Of course, calling the Apple team an “in-house agency” is like saying that a Ferrari and a Yugo are the same because they each have four wheels. Your run of the mill in-house agencies can’t attract and retain the same caliber of creative talent that Apple does. Companies usually hire "B players" from agencies and end up with a "B team." Most of the time these in-house agencies have one reason for being – saving money. They are not assigned critical tasks like the main advertising campaign and are relegated to produce collateral material, signage, brochures, etc.
Most marketers outsource their most important creative assets by reaching out to Madison Avenue. However, powerful brands like Apple are rethinking that relationship. They understand that there is an advantage to owning their critical creative relationships, whether advertising or design. More control equals better quality of output equals speed which is what marketing in real-time is about.
Apple, is the most influential American company. Reaching out to Madison Avenue and recruiting Myhren and other well-known creative luminaries is a game changer. I believe that more companies will follow suit and enlist top creative directors to head their internal creative teams. And that would be disruptive for traditional ad agencies.
Why are talented creatives leaving agencies and going client-side?
The people who generate all the ideas and work are passionate and ambitious for their ideas. Agencies, on the other hand, are happy to keep trying to live in a world which is ceasing to exist. Clinging onto the same attitude, tools, and ways of working with CEOs who are either oblivious to the current mindset or too frightened to instigate change. It’s the perfect storm of increasing decreasing loyalty and an industry reveling in mediocrity.
Ad agencies are geared to make money, to bloat projects, to burn hours. Those hourly billings have become Madison Avenue’s real product. This is not what many “A” creatives aspire for. The holding companies, agency bureaucracies and account people that insert themselves into the process have often impeded and, indeed, disrupted an environment that allows for great work.
In recent years many marketers have been adjusting, looking at agencies as vendors, not partners. In many cases, marketers have shifted from a long-standing AOR relationship with their agencies to a more transactional, project-based relationship.
It’s time that agencies create a place where talented people want to use their skills to build great things for clients and brands. Or risk seeing these people take their passion and expertise somewhere else, often directly to clients.
