Yikes…I may have touched a nerve with some folks in the advertising and marketing community. Harry L. posted the following comment:

Mike,

Explain to me the justification of "Creativity is practically free and CEOs/CMOs are telling us that they
know it" and where I can find this "soaring" supply of free big ideas .

. . I look around the marketing world and find big ideas to be in

shorter supply than ever, especially big brand ideas that drive demand,

interest and identification. From my POV there are fewer and fewer

people in this business who are experienced enough and capable of

generating big brand ideas . . . and the value/cost of those ideas is

higher than ever. Looking for free ideas can't be the way to create

and drive a brand forward. I'd love to hear your POV on where to find

free creative that does what "just do it," "think different," "got

milk," "let's motor," "drivers wanted," etc. did for those brands.

Hi Harry,

Thanks for your comment and interest in the subject. My business and marketing thinking is generally shaped by my observation
of trends and what's driving those trends. A trend that's gaining

ground here in California is pay-for-performance agencies. I'm aware of a

new PR firm in San Diego that's raising some eyebrows, and getting

clients, with that model.

I met with the founder and I believe his firm is the real deal. Could pay-for-performance advertising
and marketing be the next big step? I'm hearing a decent amount of buzz

about it and I'm now offering many marketing services, including PR,

that are billed by the project…not by the hour. Once I can build a

track record of performance I can use predictive modeling to allow me to

offer PFP marketing services…and I will.

I appreciate the famous tag lines you quoted. I believe it's wonderful when an agency can
deliver such exceptional value. My observation is simply that, today,

agencies aren't the only choice for creativity and newer, less expensive

means of generating creativity have emerged. Some of the examples are

quite old, so they're not part of a current trend. Most of them were

created for huge companies that could afford large agencies and their

overhead.

Google's non-marketing is marvelous proof of how to do it without an agency. Granted their entire business model is built upon
a foundation of search marketing that they own, yet somehow they managed to pull off a

huge business success by not using conventional thinking and

marketing…like their competitors did. Google's advertising strategy

has always been mostly PR and advertising on their own site. None of

that, to my recollection, has been driven by a big idea. They simply

deliver incredibly innovative value and it catches on. Today Google is

generally ranked among the top brands of the world, depending on whose

survey you want to quote.

Regarding the declining cost of creativity, consider the following:

1) Agency revenues are in a
freefall. If clients believe big ideas from agencies are valuable, and

becoming more scarce, wouldn't agency revenues be going up?

2)
New and better marketing technologies are emerging rapidly. If there

wasn't a demand for do-it-yourself branding tools like Spigit, why would

investors back such a company?

3) The mobile marketing
workforce has never been more talented or more plentiful. Over supply

means a downward push on pricing.

Where can we find a soaring supply of free ideas? I encourage clients to look within their own
companies. I've always found tremendous advertising ideas by talking

with folks in sales, purchasing, R&D, operations, finance and other

corporate functions. Until recently, it just wasn't generally accepted

that good ideas originated anywhere but the agency…but search and

social media have turned that cart completely over while paving the way

for nifty tools like Spigit. By the way, that's what Spigit helps

with…collecting and sorting all those great ideas generated inside

the company.

Of course the uber source for free branding and advertising ideas is the internet itself. The creativity one gleans from
search is only limited by the creativity of the searcher. And it costs

nary a dime.

Anyways, hope this sheds some light on why I believe the cost of high quality advertising, branding and marketing is headed
downward.

Mike Harris, San Diego