Agencies, MBAs, and the Content War

hey Gary it's Ryan Charleston from ad pressive how are you good uh there's a lot of talk about agencies and the role they play in Native advertising storytelling obviously that's what they're good at yep um and how Publishers are kind of encroaching on that territory doesn't this though put them back sort of at the center who the agencies listen very honestly and I said it when I was in the wine business I to I sat in front of a room like this in Napa with a hell of a lot more people and I said in 1999 I said listen I'm starting to do a lot more business on this thing called e-commerce that you all think is stupid and I'm like you better not make the mistake of me having more value than you all of you in this room should start selling your wine direct to Consumer because if you do you're going to keep a hell of a lot more of the money to me if Vayner media and my agency does not bring value to my client we should be out of business so should everybody so the answer is you can't just say agency it's like saying Social Network some suck [ __ ] and don't deserve the business some are good and are bringing more value because it's really funny that's another thing that I've learned about this agency thing since I decided to start one I can't believe all hours are treated equal I get on the phone with procurement and they're like well this I'm like what the [ __ ] are you talking about like that company is [ __ ] like I'm doing good work can I get more value for my hour if it's quality and so I think that's what it comes down to I think that Publishers should play very honestly I'll give you I'll go really Rogue on you on this question so if you look at data which I love so much in the 19 in 1982 the percentage of mbas that went to cpg clients versus retail that went to Proctor and went all the way up into the early 2000s everybody went to Proctor and PepsiCo and companies somewhere around 99 2000 you started seeing an interesting shift where a lot of people started going to retail and more importantly the creme Dela creme were starting to go retail so over the last 30 years the amount of money that brands have put into working media versus trade has been stunning if you look at the money that retailers like Kmart and warts and all those guys got from brands in 1982 it was nothing it was an afterthought when you start looking at the money today that the Walmarts and the Costco and what now Amazon is asking for the trade dollars it's stunning at the same time those companies those Walmarts and Costco the amount of private labels they had 30 years ago were non-existent today they're substantial parts of the business so brands are funding their competitor isn't you know un Libra's competitor isn't necessarily Cincinnati it's more Arkansas than they think and soon to be Seattle right so here is where I'm going with this because you don't know why the [ __ ] I'm saying this somewhere around the time when the Talent started going to the retailer instead of the brand something interesting happened I actually think that the smartest Brands out there when they start winning the creative battle and all of a sudden the best creatives aren't going to startups and maybe aren't going to Fancy schmancy agencies but they're going to Brand direct and they become the best storytellers I think there's a major battle between the publisher the brand and the agency and who's going to win is who's ever good at it right and so there'll be a flushing out there's a lot of below average work out there at scale that's going to be fleshed out because the innovation's on people are paying attention I think the number one creative chick right now that is coming out of school today may want to go to a fancy agency here on some you know Madison I think in you know 3 four 5 seven years it's going to be interesting where that gal might want to go and it may want to be brand direct every person every business every human in here every brand smartw everybody is in the content War now we're all in the content business and it's all going to come to a head and you know quality is going to win and whoever's got the right strategy is going to win