MattCreamer.com

There’s been no posting here thanks to the holiday craziness, a bit of travel and because I’ve been immersed in editing Ad Age’s annual package on the agency business. Over the past two years, this has morphed from a straightforward look at a few agencies of the year alongside capsule reviews of 25 or so national shops to something that we think is a vast improvement. Basically, we’re acting more as a filter that sifts out the top ten agencies in the marketing world  and we’ve ditched our former role as a kind-of comprehensive repository of thumbs up and down on all the shops that matter. The result is a deeper look at each of the best-in-class agencies and what makes them tick. To get here,  we’ve taken a wider lens to the marketplace, bringing in digital, media, and PR shops as well as business that defy easy categorization, such as Anomaly. A Why? That’s where most of spending increase and innovation is happening.  Herewith “Agencies: The A-List.”

All in all, I’m happy with the way the it turned out, primarily because the A-List offers a more accurate view of where the marketing world and the agency business are going. Here are a few highlights:

• Most importantly, AdAge for the first time named a digital agency its Network of the Year, anointing Tribal DDB with the honor. The rationale is that Tribal has transcended the digital ghetto (ok, it’s a gilded ghetto) and become a true marketing partner for big brands from Pepsi to Philips on a worldwide basis. Tribal does bang-up work, has a truly global footprint, and is run by smart, nice people who actually seem to enjoy working together. Then there’s also the symbolism of reflecting where so much of the growth in the ad business is: online.
• From the perspective of a general market agency, one-stop shops like Goodby Silverstein & Partners–this year’s U.S. Agency of the Year–Martin Agency and Crispin Porter & Bogusky (well, a two-stop shop) are running far ahead of the pack. We had only one of those sprawling 100-office monsters on the A-List (Saatchi & Saatchi) and one micronetwork in Wieden & Kennedy, which, incidentally, probably made the second-best case for the global award. There are a lot of reasons the one-office national model is winning out. These guys are lean, quick, do creative work often with the all-important publicity element built in, and can do digital or at least subcontract it to other guys who can. All this without a lot of hassle.  If the global players don’t get advantages of this model and try to adapt, there’ll be more hard times for them. We’re already seeing them reduced to delivery networks for ideas created by smaller agencies in more and more cases and we could see worse in the future. Agencies need to be more about helping clients manage complexity, not add to it.
• In a conversation with our Executive of the Year, Richard Edelman, he told me that there’s a least a chance that his eponymous PR firm could go public. He seems to be leaning against a straight sale to any of the holding companies and isn’t ruling out a public offering. Public ownership is tough on service business in general and, in particular,  on midsized marketing-service agencies, the category into which Edelman would likely fit.  (See the Digitas drama.)  Richard did throw out the caveat that he’d need a rationale to make such a move, say, to fund a deal. When I pressed him on whether taking some money out of what’s been a closely-held company would be enough reason, he suggested it wouldn’t. We’ll see.
• Finally, if you’re wondering why we’re doing what we’re doing, this column from AdAge Editor (and my boss) Jonah Bloom sums things up tidily.

Looking forward to getting some feedback. Feel free to post here or write me at mcreamer@adage.com.