Advertising agencies are solely responsible for the proliferation of workshops, in-houses and free-lancers. As long as we continue to focus on making quick and cheap ads, we will not be making any difference and we will continue to perpetuate ourselves as just another commodity.
In recent months, at Tribu we have seen some clear indications of the urgency to take concrete actions to finally define the added value we must deliver. Let’s look at a recent example, calling a spade a spade: Pipasa.
A few years ago, Pipasa set up an advertising agency, when it still belonged to Calixto Cháves. They left our agency and went on their own advertising adventure, creating a curious group: chicken sausages, bulk chicken, frozen chicken, dog food, chicken restaurants and? advertising agency, among other businesses. Everyone knows how they failed and how they had to close that advertising operation, in addition to selling the entire corporation to a well-known financial group.
The new owners, Grupo Samma and the civil society sector they represent, decided to repeat the mistake of the past, and today they are trying their luck again. The group now, however, in addition to all the aforementioned companies, includes a hospital, a finance company and other related companies, for example, making it difficult for us to understand “the art of doing business”.
This company, like any other, is in its absolute right to open the company it wants, and for this, there is no claim whatsoever. What is not true is that they will find in their own agency a more creative, imaginative or value-added solution.
On the contrary, the in-house has serious difficulties to be creative, it folds to the organization easily, depends on the client-boss, loses freedom and mimics the parent organization. The in-house suffers from a serious difficulty to hire the best talent, consumes time and managerial talent of the client and leads conventional ideas.
If the big advertisers of the world do not have in-houses, what makes Pipasa think that they are going to do it successfully? It is very different to have an in-house graphics shop for minutiae, routine or low exposure, than to pretend to substitute the value that agencies such as Tribu, DDB, JBQ, Garnier or McCann can add, just to mention some of the first class options in the country.
We will talk more about this topic. There is more to add and much to say. There are more cases and signs to point out. What do you think?
