You Dropped a Bomb on Me

There’s an old joke that goes like this:

“If there's ever a nuclear bomb that wipes out civilization, only two things would survive - cockroaches and advertising agencies.”

As for the bugs, they apparently can handle the blast and the high levels of radiation thanks to their hardy exoskeleton and cell make-up. They also don’t need much food or water to survive and can go weeks without eating.

As for ad agencies, well, those of us who have worked inside good ones know we can survive because we always find a way to be useful.

That said, these days I can’t venture to a website or an app without hearing about the demise of agencies.

Oh, sure, we do some dumb stuff like prioritizing real estate over talent (see the latest RTO mandates).

Or chasing trends instead of focusing on real ideas based on timeless human truths.

I could go on, but this piece is about the power of agencies.

One thing is that the best agencies provide a home for misfit talent. People who can be remarkably brilliant but can’t always be slotted neatly into a conventional org chart.

(By the way, as of today we have a generation of TikTok creator refugees on the street. Who’s going be smart enough to hire a bunch of these folks, train them and unleash them on brands?)

But I digress…

Agencies will also survive because they provide an evergreen, in-demand service to businesses.

Two, in fact. Perspective and Dreaming.

Perspective is both analytical and integrative. Agencies, being on the outside, can see things someone who’s running a business day-to-day on the inside cannot. And then agencies are quite good at connecting those things. “Connecting the dots,” as it were. And turning those dots into action.

Dreaming is the creative part. Good agencies use those misfit folks I mentioned above and focus them to combine truth, vision and ambition to create something that isn’t obvious in the here and now.

This is the skill (and courage) to say “What if…” and then complete the sentence with an idea.

What if we helped Kraft sell more cheese by combing cheese and bread and grilling it? The Grilled Cheese Sandwich. (Agency: J Walter Thompson for Kraft, 1910)

What if we invited ourselves into every single romantic union, and a couple’s life thereafter, by inspiring people to express their love and commitment to each other with a diamond? “A diamond is forever.” (NW Ayer for DeBeers, 1947

What if got people to consider an efficient, economical and quirky car instead of these giant gas guzzlers that prowl our streets and highways? Our philosophy could be: “Think Small.” (Agency: Doyle Dane Bernbach for VW, 1959)

What if we got people to drink more milk by highlighting a world without it. “Got Milk?” (Agency: Goodby, Silverstein for the CA Milk Processor Board, 1993)

What if we put a skincare brand on the map — for men. (Agency: Ogilvy for CeraVe, 2024)

I can go on and on with agency ideas like TBWA’s “Absolut” work, Fallon’s “BMW Films,” AMV’s The Economist, Chiat/Day’s multiple campaigns for Apple including “1984,” “Think Different,” and more recently TBWA\Media Arts Labs’ “Shot On iPhone,” as well as Ogilvy’s “Real Beauty” for Dove. And, of course, Wieden’s gold standard, “Just Do It” for Nike.

Agency notions that truly changed how we live. And created prodigious value for brands.

And yet, here we are in 2025, punishing agencies on fees. And on the agency side, we seem to be phoning it in. (Or maybe more accurately Zooming it in.)

Where is the ambition?

Where is the vision?

Where are the ideas?

The funny thing is, we’ve never had more tools that can help us from A.I. to reams of consumer data at our fingertips to utterly efficient digital distribution.

And yet, we sit here as though a nuclear bomb has gone off and we don’t know what to do.

I know what I would do if I was leading a brand and had a product.

First, I’d step on that roach.

Then, I’d call the agency.

Image: Midjourney