The Future Looks Bright. Think fast. Think Smart... or Get Out of The Way.

Today Scott Goodson returned. (Insert dramatic SFX.)

Yes. I missed his writings over the past couple of weeks, and what a come back.

TOTAL POSITIVITY!

Scott and StrawberryFrog has always remained a very positive voice in this crazy ad world and in his blog today he pointed out the changes he is seeing in the current landscape and what the future is expecting.

Simple. Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) are looking for more, better, faster.

Here’s is a few highlights from his blog post:

Things are getting busy. Very busy. So much so that I simply haven't had much time to write on this blog. After the economic collapse in the back end of 2008 and the first quarter of 2009, the phones started to ring again in early spring. First there were one or two inquiries a week. Now it's a new call a day.

I have been in touch with a select group of other modern agencies, and it's much the same with them. We are getting a lot of calls, most of them from large clients that previously worked exclusively with the very big legacy holding company agencies or networks.

This is a phenomenal sign for places like the FrogPond.

We've noticed that clients are looking for smarter, better, more effective and more efficient partners. Partners that are part of the solution, not the problem.

If current contact growth rates hold up, we could be witnessing the first significant shift in business away from the traditional agencies… towards new, more innovative firms with the competence and pedigree to strategically steward a brand and scale it with creative excellence in all media. Far-fetched? Perhaps. But if you understand the pressures clients are under… then you can see why they are searching for new options...

When we started StrawberryFrog ten years ago, it was virtually unheard of for huge major clients to award multi-million dollar accounts to new challenger firms. This is no longer the case. We have proven over ten years that you can do what huge clients need and want, but do it differently than the dinosaurs. Many of the calls we've received the past month have been from America's blue chip companies wishing to meet us and understand how we can service their businesses and brands differently from the legacy agencies.

For agencies like ours this is a welcome sign. "Yeah, yeah yeah", you say. Sure thing. But even in the face of that semi-corny line, these call do signal the importance of brilliant ideas, the resurgence of strategic and creative excellence, and not the focus on money or the crushing weight of bureaucracies.

Today, intelligence, experience, innovative and being agile as hell counts.

The pressures of the economy mixed with the media revolution underway are pushing clients to take hard looks at their traditional agencies and this is blowing the cobwebs out of the advertising attic, and creating new opportunities for modern…

It was once echoed in a song “The future looks bright… I’m gonna need shades”.

Sign me up.

Scott and StrawberryFrog continue to inspire me to change the way I teach and how my students need to prepare.

You gotta be smarter, you gotta be faster, and you gotta adapt.