If one agency decided they were going to use a digital tactic for its clients because it made sense, it was the best use of the creative, it met all the objectives and, above all, it was a strong cultural fit for the agency and the creative minds, we would start seeing true ownership of the digital space.

I believe things like this are key to our success. We need to tie everything we do back to what the agency does well. We then measure it or learn from mistakes and try something else. This is where real innovation and leadership lie. We all accept that it’s confusing out there, and this isn’t about laying blame or complaining it’s difficult. This is about leadership — owning something we can actually contribute to the space and effectively helping to shape all roles at an agency.

Instead of everyone trying to learn about the latest, why don’t we challenge those to figure out how it fits into the foundation and [principles] that permeate the agency and will contribute to its success? Defaulting to tactics of any kind is not seizing the opportunity we have; it also doesn’t establish us as leaders or innovators in a space.

We need more leaders and fewer pretenders; there needs to be more ownership of longer-term executions and less about covering all the bases. Worrying so much about being on the cutting edge puts us too far in front of the people we need to reach. There are consequences for this splatter-gun approach. For me, the absence of leadership and work that actually reflects the agency is what we need to put our energies into.

– Jeremy Adirim

Which, in my mind, is just a more contemporary, albeit longer soliloquy, of Andrei Tarkovsky: