John Winsor

What Happens Now?

As an entrepreneur that’s sold a few companies, I’ve had the experience of what it’s like pre and post transaction three times now. It’s something that entrepreneurs talk about and certainly worry even more about. It’s your baby. You’ve put your blood, sweet and tears into something. You have a team of fellow rebels that have taken a leap of faith, usually starting with lots of passion and a lot to learn and experience.

The conventional rumor is that gaining a new strategic partner can be a bit like Jekyll and Hyde – During the courting phase it’s all wonderful but when the deal’s done things change radically.

A month into our partnership with Havas, I’m more inspired than I ever thought I could be. Everyone I’ve met and worked with have been truly amazing. Not just positive but realistic, transparent, passionate, and accepting. From the beginning of V&S our vision has been to change the way advertising works for the benefit of clients and agency folks alike using collaborative technology. Working with the leadership of David Jones and the Havas team, I’m more confident that our vision will be radically accelerated on a global scale.

Finding a partner like Havas is what every entrepreneur dreams of.

Hello, David

While today it might seem commonplace to think that the 3 C’s, collaboration, co-creation and crowdsourcing play a major role in the future of advertising it was a bit of an outlier idea only a few years ago. Nonetheless, it’s something that’s been fueling my quest my whole career. I’ve always looked for opportunities to create more cultural momentum around the ideas. Changing an industry’s culture around an idea is more of a marathon than a sprint.

When I started my first company Sports and Fitness Publishing back in 1986, I was intrigued with how early adopter consumers, or in the case of our magazines, core athletes, could help influence the marketing and product development of the leading brands in a category. There’s a long history in outdoor sports, like climbing, where the lead users and the top brands worked together to push a sport forward. While it wasn’t called co-creation back then, that’s what it was.

After selling Sports and Fitness Publishing to Conde Nast, I was obsessed with applying co-creation to a wider audience, which became the basis of Radar Communications in 2000, as well as the central theme of my second book, Beyond the Brand: Why Engaging the Right Customers is Essential to Winning in Business.

“In this new era, beyond the brand, it is the creative citizens – the people and the brands – that will survive and thrive by co-creating from the bottom-up.” and  “Brands that can make the transition to provide honest, original, cultural materials will win.”

It was certainly early days for collaboration and co-creation, more of a theory than anything else. While Radar was a great success, the opportunity to work with Alex Bogusky came in 2007 (to put collaboration and co-creation at the center of Crispin, Porter + Bogusky’s brand strategy). The Radar team became the planning department, a bigger stage to influence culture with the ideas of collaboration and co-creation. As Alex and I wrote Baked-In, we started talking about a sub-category of co-creation: crowdsourcing. We put that theory into practice as we crowdsourced for a client. The results were astounding.

After leaving CP+B I wanted to take the exploration into co-creation and crowdsourcing even deeper with the founding of Victors & Spoils. My good friends from Tango, Scott Beck and Chris Marks, believed in and helped fund Claudia, Evan and I as we explored the new world of abundance in digital and social technologies, accelerating the cultural momentum of the 3 C’s.

In the last couple of years, I’ve had the chance to talk with some of the best thinkers about the future of advertising. Along the way I had the good fortune to meet David Jones.  While many in the advertising industry talk the talk about innovation, very few walk the walk. David takes it one step further and runs the run. I was impressed not only by his vision for Havas and One Young World, but also by his bold philosophy outlined in Who Cares Wins. Every conversation we had flowed from a similar world-view that collaboration, co-creation and crowdsourcing are the future of not only advertising, but business itself; and that a deep dedication to becoming a social business can make the world a better place. We both believe that the new competitive advantage is a collaborative advantage.

From those conversations grew a vision to work together to create even more global cultural momentum for collaboration, co-creation and crowdsourcing. I believe that Victors & Spoils and Havas together can change the way advertising is done for both clients and creatives for the better.

Our connection with Havas will give us the ability to accelerate our vision and global reach, enabling us to continue building our community and our digital collaborative tools.

As the Chief Innovation Officer of Havas, I’m honored to be a part of David’s team to help spread this vision even more broadly.

Who Needs An Advertising Agency, Anyway?

 

When we started to work with Harley-Davidson we had this crazy idea. If you could source ideas from advertising professionals around the world using digital management (via Victors & Spoils' digital collaboration system which we call Agency Machine) then why couldn't a brand source ideas from their own most rabid fans?

With all of the attention that is on social media, and the significant investment by brands in fan acquisition, why not put fans to work? By doing so you could figure out a couple of things. First, who your most important fans are. And second, by allowing fans access into the brand in a substantial way, we’d create radical engagement. Fans would no longer be customers but co-creators of the brand.

These questions lead us on a journey to create Fan Machine.

Fan Machine is software that allows a folks who have "liked" a brand on Facebook to submit ideas directly to the brand. By giving fans an easy way to contribute ideas and vote on submissions from other fans, Fan Machine facilitates real co-creation with the brands they love, while giving them a chance at prizes and a seat at the creative table. And brands can wrangle the conversation by posting specific "briefs" for their fans to work on. These briefs might relate to an upcoming advertising campaign, new product or seasonal promotion.

We launched Fan Machine last November with Harley-Davidson as our first client. Harley-Davidson has some great passionate fans that really went to town. 584 people threw down ideas for the first brief and 16,000 people voted, to create campaign ideas for the model year 12 1/2. Harold Chase, from Tukwila, Washington, submitted the idea that became the advertising campaign, “E Pluribus Unum.” The V&S team shaped Harold’s idea then used Twitter to cast fans and followers, all bike owners, for the spot, above.

In a world where ideas can come from anywhere - and amateurs are getting better everyday at creating everything from videos to posters -  what is the role of an agency? While it might seem like there’s not much of a future for them, our experience is that agencies play an even more vital role. With an abundance of ideas, it’s easy for a brand to get crushed by the sheer volume of possibility. Agencies are evolving to focus on three areas, 1. The development of a great brief that gives anyone the ability to deliver good work; 2. The creative and strategic direction of ideas; and 3. Brand stewardship.

Under the leadership of Mark-Hans Richer, Scott Beck, Dino Bernacchi, Mark Peine and the rest of the Harley-Davidson team, we at V&S have the ability to focus our creative energies at the front edge of advertising. Their visionary approach, that great ideas can come from everywhere and can be curated into great work, will be a model for many other brands to follow.

Sitting here at my fourth TED I've been reflecting about how much the world has changed. Crowdsourcing, co-creation and open systems is the main theme at TED this year. There's been a paradigm shift in culture. Consumers now know they're in charge. It means a new openness. A new narrative. One not built by closed systems, they are all quickly collapsing. But one built by the people. By the crowd. 

Any closed system, whether it's an Arab governent, a big brand or an advertising agency, is doomed if it doesn't open up. Yet there is a lot to hold to. While closed systems exert hard power, protecting the status quo, open systems exert soft power. It's like water, slowly ebbing and flowing all the while erroding the hard surfaces around it.

In this flat world openness is accelerating. With it comes more fluidity, more generosity and more opportunities.

And, that's a world I want to be apart of.

 

I've noticed how my own social media use has changed. I'm apart of a dozen or so social networks, everything from Path to Twitter and Facebook to Instagram. And, the latest, Pintrest. That's only a small fraction. We live in a networked world and in this social media 1.0 phase it's been all about the network. 2011, will be remembered as the year that social media really mattered. From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street and a rash of corporations learning the hard lessons of the power of the network. 

But it was all about the network. I believe that 2012 will be the me-ification of social media where the focus will move from the network to the individual helping people manage and share massive amounts of information in a very intimate, socially focusd way. A couple of great examples are Strava, the cycling and exercise site that let's you share massive amounts of information from your rides to your friends and coach. 

 

And, Vail's Epic Mix that helps you measure your vertical, compare with your friends, find your family and even check the traffic.

 

EpicMix was born on a chairlift ride at Vail with Alex Bogusky, Winston Binch and myself. It was a solve for a small group of us and while it's driving Vail's customer strategy, it started small. It was all about the collective me.

Expect that more micro-networks that are all about the collective me to arise this year. At the end of the day it's a natural progression.

 

The news that Ladies' Home Journal was turning to crowdsourcing as a way forward was a bit of a shock to me. The first company I started, Sports and Fitness Publishing, was a magazine company. You could say that I have ink in my blood. My Dad, Grandfather and Great Grandfather were all newspaper publishers. Almost every summer job I had in High School and College was working at the Canton Daily Ledger, my hometown paper. I loved being a reporter, selling local advertising and working in the press. There was something magical about waking up every morning and with an idea of what might be the news that day and by 3 o'clock be looking at a finished, printed newspaper fulfilling the vision of being at the center of the community dialogue. Unfortunately, those days are long gone for the newspaper industry.

What once were stalwarts of the media landscape now look more like dinosaurs on the verge of extinction. New forms are born from the skeletons of the old.

When I started Sports and Fitness Publishing I couldn't afford a staff of writers to write every article, like we did at the Ledger. With technology, two types of work evolved. We kept in house all of the management, client services and editorial skills but we free-lanced experts that might be more into a sport than a great writer. For Women's Sports and Fitness I couldn't see hiring a staff writer that could write a credible article about climbing Everest one month and doing the Ironman Triathlon the next. The editors provided the vision, hired the writers, edited their work and produced the magazine. 

If you want to call it crowdsourcing, a term that certainly wasn't around then, so be it. It was an economic imperative that we ran the company that way. And, it worked pretty well. We eventually sold the company to Conde Nast.

It's one thing to have a small Boulder-based magazine company use crowdsourcing but quite another to have one of the vaunted Seven Sister magazines turn to crowdsourcing as a way to allow their readers to write the magazine. I'm sure it's an economic imperative with slipping revenues (ad pages were down 13.6%), loss of subscribers and rising print costs. Technology is wreaking havoc on these once untouchable magazine properties as people find new, cheaper ways to get and exchange information.

The ad agency business is not far behind. There have been lots of great examples over the years of people experimenting with outsourced and freelance creative and strategy. In fact, the industry as a whole uses freelancers more than anyone would like to admit. Similarly, technology and the social web are changing what the very essence of advertising is. Just like the Seven Sisters who were built on 100s of pages of spread advertisers big agencies are still built on TV advertising. It's where the big costs are and hence where an agency can charge the biggest fees. (Check out my earlier post Fees, Lies and Advertising for a POV) My sense is that it won't be long be for you'll see the big venerated agencies like Y&R, BBDO, McCann, Saatchi and JWT turn to crowdsourcing, like Ladies’ Home Journal, as they will have to change their business models radically to cope with technology driven paradigm shifts.

The future of Ladies' Home Journal and the rest of the Seven Sisters will be a radically smaller in-house staff of editors, management and client services folks with the majority of the content being produced by a digitally organized crowd of freelance contributors and readers. (HuffingtonPost seems to have this dialed). It won't be long before big agencies follow suit. My sense is that a current 2000 person agency will become a 200 person agency made up of very talented creatives, strategists and account folks that all know how to harness the power of abundance. Sure, fees will drop substantially. Agencies will get a lot smaller. In the end a lot of the waste and puffery that agencies are so well known for will be gone. Egos will be in check. 

This radical wave that's sweeping over the industry has only just begun. Like any tidal wave of change, the more nimble, forward thinking agencies and holding companies will thrive and the bigger more, lumbering organizations will get swept under just like the dinosaurs that perished in the La Brea tar pits.

Not to fear, there will be even more work for talented creatives, strategists and account folks  who will still produce great work using new technologies to aggregate and groom great ideas, not much unlike Ladies' Home Journal is planning to do.

 

Charlie, one of my ten year old sons, got a homework assignment last night. He was to use a dictionary to find the Guide Words for dfferent words. I had forgotten what Guide Words are. If you're like me, they are the words at the top of the page in a dictionary that guide the search for the word you're looking for. Guide words are an artifact of the analogue dictionary and not really needed using an online dictionary.

So, that meant finding a Dictionary. First our house. None. Then 3 nieghbors. Nope. The fourth nieghbor is a high school drama and english teacher. Sure enough, he had a few. I asked to borrow one but he kindly suggested we keep it snince he hadn't opened it up in years. I had forgotten how beautiful a great dictionary is. 

While technology changes our access to new ways of doing things exponentially culture tends to change much more slowly and incrementally. There's a lot of tension between these two growth curves. And, with this tension comes selective memory. 

Reflecting back on 2011 what sticks out are some of the profoundly smart people in the ad industry I had a chance to connect with last year. Through multiple conversations with each person on the list my thinking shifted and I was inspired. The ad industry is in the midst of profound change. Lot’s of folks have taken the “protect the flanks” approach with looking at the change in the industry as the glass is half empty. This group of leaders and thinkers represents a different, more positive outlook.

The reality is that change always happens. You can choose to look at it as a threat or an opportunity.

Thanks to conversations with this group I’m more stoked than ever.

1. Rishad Tobaccowala – Just saying his name makes you smarter. Spending time with Rishad makes you realize that the future will be what it is. That it’s just advertising and nobody's going to die. Rishad’s steady, thoughtful point of view gives you confidence in pusuing your own path.
2. Doug Moore – Doug’s willingness to innovate in the way advertising is done is inspiring. His balance to produce great work while looking for ways to change the model is something that more people will do in 2012.
3. David Jones – If you want to imagine what the holding company of the future might look like talk to David. His willingness to honestly address the biggest issues in the industry is inspiring. I just finished his new book, Who Cares Wins. It’s an important read for anyone in advertising.
4. Mark-Hans Richer - MH's ability to take an iconic brand and challenge the way to interact with customers and fans is an example of where advertising is going.
5. John Partilla – Every conversation with John is so full of positivity that you feel stoked. He’s one of the really good guys.
6. Alex Bogusky – Although it’s been 2 years since I’ve had the opportunity to work with Alex day to day I admire his fearlessness now more than ever.
7. Ty Montague – As a fellow traveller over the horizon of advertising, it’s been a joy to hang with Ty. His upcoming book is a powerhouse and shifts the paradigm of what storytelling can do for brands.
8. Bob Lord – A conversation with Bob makes you realize that all of this talk about new digital tools and the combination digital and traditional advertising has been going on for a lot longer than the current crop of gurus might want to admit. That experience brings wisdom. In every conversation a bit of it falls your way.
9. Tim Malbon – Hanging out with Tim gets you stoked to roll up your sleeves and start making stuff. The world is wide open for those who want to start making, experimenting and building.
10. Alasdair Lloyd-Jones – Alasdair has this wonderful way of poking holes in your argument in such a positive way. When you finish a conversation with him and your ideas have evolved to a much better place it’s hard to realize that he’s had that effect. His a bit of a strategic jui jitsu master.

There were also many other brilliant minds that I had the good fortune of intersecting. Thanks to all for giving so much.

Here’s to creating more momentum in 2012 to the changes that are already underway in the industry. 

 

Mr. Horton,
 
When we read the news of American Airlines filing for Chapter 11, we were inspired by the “take the bull by the horns” attitude. Because we didn’t see it as a move of weakness. But rather, a move of courage. The world has changed not only for the airline industry, but also for every other industry and company out there. A combination of economic and technology realities mixed with consumer demand has made it necessary for all CEOs to re-examine everything. And do whatever it takes. 
 
We’re seeing the same thing in the business of advertising. The old “FTE-based” (full time employee) business model is a dinosaur. It’s a compensation model that actually encourages agencies to move slower and put more staff on a piece of business to make more money. And, pardon the pun, it just won’t fly anymore. Which is why, in 2009, we started Victors & Spoils under a whole different model. One based on allowing a vast crowd of creatives to ideate against a business problem, shaped by a few select industry veterans. A model that merges technology and the irresistible force of creative collaboration to deliver businesses more thinking for more realistic cost.
 
So, in an effort of helping you achieve your goal of industry competitiveness, with a more attractive agency payment structure, we’ve decided to act as if we’re working together already. We’ve written and launched a creative brief aimed at helping you reinvent your airline as you restructure. And we’ve put this brief to our crowd of 6,000+ creatives - offering $10,000 of our own toward the ideas we think can best help American Airlines become a more nimble airline, one that can change the way we think about air travel and solve some of the biggest issues for customers. 
 
But we’d love to let you pick the ideas you like best, yourselves. So please, give us a shout or send us a tweet and let’s schedule some time to show you this fantastic work. And who knows? If you like what you see, maybe you’ll also restructure with a more nimble agency relationship – to match your more nimble airline. 
 
Thank you for your courage and vision. 
 
Best,
 
John

One of the most amazing and wonderful things in the last couple of years here at Victors & Spoils has been dynamic tension that’s been created between being an advertising agency and a tech start-up. That tension that’s been created by mashing up the two cultures has been profound for me.

When we started we noticed that even the most tech-based agencies were analogue at their core. We asked ourselves a couple of questions. First, what would happen if we took the functions of a typical ad agency and digitized them? The way we communicate. How we work in a massively distributed way across the globe. Hence, we created Agency Machine. Taking an analogue business process and making it digital is a messy affair, full of trials and errors. All said, it’s working pretty darn well and gives us the ability to scale globally and rapidly.

Next we thought about what we could build for our clients. It’s something that has intrigued me for a while, and was an inspiration for Alex Bogusky and me to write Baked-In. Lot’s of agencies talk about building their own IP but their own structure gets in the way.  Forty percent of the Victors & Spoils team is here to build proprietary technology. We feel it’s the only way to go beyond just building campaigns for clients to building platforms that scale across media and can be massively scalable. Yesterday we launched our second tech product, Fan Machine, working with Harley-Davidson as our launch client. Mark-Hans Richer, Dino Bernnachi and their team at Harley-Davidson have been great partners in exploring ways to shift the paradigm of how advertising is created. We want to make the experience better for creatives, customers and brands by cutting out fat and facilitating faster, deeper conversations between brands, consumers and creatives.

Agency Machine and Fan Machine are just the start of what we’re building. It’s not just about creating great work, it’s also about building the digital tools to change the way campaigns are born and executed.  

The Flattening of TED

Sitting here at my fourth TED I've been reflecting about how much the world has changed. Crowdsourcing, co-creation and open systems is the main theme at TED this year. There's been a paradigm shift in culture. Consumers now know they're in charge. It means a new openness. A new narrative. One not built by closed systems, they are all quickly collapsing. But one built by the people. By the crowd. 

Any closed system, whether it's an Arab governent, a big brand or an advertising agency, is doomed if it doesn't open up. Yet there is a lot to hold to. While closed systems exert hard power, protecting the status quo, open systems exert soft power. It's like water, slowly ebbing and flowing all the while erroding the hard surfaces around it.

In this flat world openness is accelerating. With it comes more fluidity, more generosity and more opportunities.

And, that's a world I want to be apart of.

 

The Me-ification of Social Media

I've noticed how my own social media use has changed. I'm apart of a dozen or so social networks, everything from Path to Twitter and Facebook to Instagram. And, the latest, Pintrest. That's only a small fraction. We live in a networked world and in this social media 1.0 phase it's been all about the network. 2011, will be remembered as the year that social media really mattered. From the Arab Spring to Occupy Wall Street and a rash of corporations learning the hard lessons of the power of the network. 

But it was all about the network. I believe that 2012 will be the me-ification of social media where the focus will move from the network to the individual helping people manage and share massive amounts of information in a very intimate, socially focusd way. A couple of great examples are Strava, the cycling and exercise site that let's you share massive amounts of information from your rides to your friends and coach. 

 

And, Vail's Epic Mix that helps you measure your vertical, compare with your friends, find your family and even check the traffic.

 

EpicMix was born on a chairlift ride at Vail with Alex Bogusky, Winston Binch and myself. It was a solve for a small group of us and while it's driving Vail's customer strategy, it started small. It was all about the collective me.

Expect that more micro-networks that are all about the collective me to arise this year. At the end of the day it's a natural progression.

 

Will Madison Avenue Become the La Brea Tar Pits of the Ad Industry?

The news that Ladies' Home Journal was turning to crowdsourcing as a way forward was a bit of a shock to me. The first company I started, Sports and Fitness Publishing, was a magazine company. You could say that I have ink in my blood. My Dad, Grandfather and Great Grandfather were all newspaper publishers. Almost every summer job I had in High School and College was working at the Canton Daily Ledger, my hometown paper. I loved being a reporter, selling local advertising and working in the press. There was something magical about waking up every morning and with an idea of what might be the news that day and by 3 o'clock be looking at a finished, printed newspaper fulfilling the vision of being at the center of the community dialogue. Unfortunately, those days are long gone for the newspaper industry.

What once were stalwarts of the media landscape now look more like dinosaurs on the verge of extinction. New forms are born from the skeletons of the old.

When I started Sports and Fitness Publishing I couldn't afford a staff of writers to write every article, like we did at the Ledger. With technology, two types of work evolved. We kept in house all of the management, client services and editorial skills but we free-lanced experts that might be more into a sport than a great writer. For Women's Sports and Fitness I couldn't see hiring a staff writer that could write a credible article about climbing Everest one month and doing the Ironman Triathlon the next. The editors provided the vision, hired the writers, edited their work and produced the magazine. 

If you want to call it crowdsourcing, a term that certainly wasn't around then, so be it. It was an economic imperative that we ran the company that way. And, it worked pretty well. We eventually sold the company to Conde Nast.

It's one thing to have a small Boulder-based magazine company use crowdsourcing but quite another to have one of the vaunted Seven Sister magazines turn to crowdsourcing as a way to allow their readers to write the magazine. I'm sure it's an economic imperative with slipping revenues (ad pages were down 13.6%), loss of subscribers and rising print costs. Technology is wreaking havoc on these once untouchable magazine properties as people find new, cheaper ways to get and exchange information.

The ad agency business is not far behind. There have been lots of great examples over the years of people experimenting with outsourced and freelance creative and strategy. In fact, the industry as a whole uses freelancers more than anyone would like to admit. Similarly, technology and the social web are changing what the very essence of advertising is. Just like the Seven Sisters who were built on 100s of pages of spread advertisers big agencies are still built on TV advertising. It's where the big costs are and hence where an agency can charge the biggest fees. (Check out my earlier post Fees, Lies and Advertising for a POV) My sense is that it won't be long be for you'll see the big venerated agencies like Y&R, BBDO, McCann, Saatchi and JWT turn to crowdsourcing, like Ladies’ Home Journal, as they will have to change their business models radically to cope with technology driven paradigm shifts.

The future of Ladies' Home Journal and the rest of the Seven Sisters will be a radically smaller in-house staff of editors, management and client services folks with the majority of the content being produced by a digitally organized crowd of freelance contributors and readers. (HuffingtonPost seems to have this dialed). It won't be long before big agencies follow suit. My sense is that a current 2000 person agency will become a 200 person agency made up of very talented creatives, strategists and account folks that all know how to harness the power of abundance. Sure, fees will drop substantially. Agencies will get a lot smaller. In the end a lot of the waste and puffery that agencies are so well known for will be gone. Egos will be in check. 

This radical wave that's sweeping over the industry has only just begun. Like any tidal wave of change, the more nimble, forward thinking agencies and holding companies will thrive and the bigger more, lumbering organizations will get swept under just like the dinosaurs that perished in the La Brea tar pits.

Not to fear, there will be even more work for talented creatives, strategists and account folks  who will still produce great work using new technologies to aggregate and groom great ideas, not much unlike Ladies' Home Journal is planning to do.

 

Selective Memory

Charlie, one of my ten year old sons, got a homework assignment last night. He was to use a dictionary to find the Guide Words for dfferent words. I had forgotten what Guide Words are. If you're like me, they are the words at the top of the page in a dictionary that guide the search for the word you're looking for. Guide words are an artifact of the analogue dictionary and not really needed using an online dictionary.

So, that meant finding a Dictionary. First our house. None. Then 3 nieghbors. Nope. The fourth nieghbor is a high school drama and english teacher. Sure enough, he had a few. I asked to borrow one but he kindly suggested we keep it snince he hadn't opened it up in years. I had forgotten how beautiful a great dictionary is. 

While technology changes our access to new ways of doing things exponentially culture tends to change much more slowly and incrementally. There's a lot of tension between these two growth curves. And, with this tension comes selective memory. 

Ten People Who Influenced Me in 2011

Reflecting back on 2011 what sticks out are some of the profoundly smart people in the ad industry I had a chance to connect with last year. Through multiple conversations with each person on the list my thinking shifted and I was inspired. The ad industry is in the midst of profound change. Lot’s of folks have taken the “protect the flanks” approach with looking at the change in the industry as the glass is half empty. This group of leaders and thinkers represents a different, more positive outlook.

The reality is that change always happens. You can choose to look at it as a threat or an opportunity.

Thanks to conversations with this group I’m more stoked than ever.

1. Rishad Tobaccowala – Just saying his name makes you smarter. Spending time with Rishad makes you realize that the future will be what it is. That it’s just advertising and nobody's going to die. Rishad’s steady, thoughtful point of view gives you confidence in pusuing your own path.
2. Doug Moore – Doug’s willingness to innovate in the way advertising is done is inspiring. His balance to produce great work while looking for ways to change the model is something that more people will do in 2012.
3. David Jones – If you want to imagine what the holding company of the future might look like talk to David. His willingness to honestly address the biggest issues in the industry is inspiring. I just finished his new book, Who Cares Wins. It’s an important read for anyone in advertising.
4. Mark-Hans Richer - MH's ability to take an iconic brand and challenge the way to interact with customers and fans is an example of where advertising is going.
5. John Partilla – Every conversation with John is so full of positivity that you feel stoked. He’s one of the really good guys.
6. Alex Bogusky – Although it’s been 2 years since I’ve had the opportunity to work with Alex day to day I admire his fearlessness now more than ever.
7. Ty Montague – As a fellow traveller over the horizon of advertising, it’s been a joy to hang with Ty. His upcoming book is a powerhouse and shifts the paradigm of what storytelling can do for brands.
8. Bob Lord – A conversation with Bob makes you realize that all of this talk about new digital tools and the combination digital and traditional advertising has been going on for a lot longer than the current crop of gurus might want to admit. That experience brings wisdom. In every conversation a bit of it falls your way.
9. Tim Malbon – Hanging out with Tim gets you stoked to roll up your sleeves and start making stuff. The world is wide open for those who want to start making, experimenting and building.
10. Alasdair Lloyd-Jones – Alasdair has this wonderful way of poking holes in your argument in such a positive way. When you finish a conversation with him and your ideas have evolved to a much better place it’s hard to realize that he’s had that effect. His a bit of a strategic jui jitsu master.

There were also many other brilliant minds that I had the good fortune of intersecting. Thanks to all for giving so much.

Here’s to creating more momentum in 2012 to the changes that are already underway in the industry. 

 

Mr. Horton, We’re Leaning in to Help American Airlines

Mr. Horton,
 
When we read the news of American Airlines filing for Chapter 11, we were inspired by the “take the bull by the horns” attitude. Because we didn’t see it as a move of weakness. But rather, a move of courage. The world has changed not only for the airline industry, but also for every other industry and company out there. A combination of economic and technology realities mixed with consumer demand has made it necessary for all CEOs to re-examine everything. And do whatever it takes. 
 
We’re seeing the same thing in the business of advertising. The old “FTE-based” (full time employee) business model is a dinosaur. It’s a compensation model that actually encourages agencies to move slower and put more staff on a piece of business to make more money. And, pardon the pun, it just won’t fly anymore. Which is why, in 2009, we started Victors & Spoils under a whole different model. One based on allowing a vast crowd of creatives to ideate against a business problem, shaped by a few select industry veterans. A model that merges technology and the irresistible force of creative collaboration to deliver businesses more thinking for more realistic cost.
 
So, in an effort of helping you achieve your goal of industry competitiveness, with a more attractive agency payment structure, we’ve decided to act as if we’re working together already. We’ve written and launched a creative brief aimed at helping you reinvent your airline as you restructure. And we’ve put this brief to our crowd of 6,000+ creatives - offering $10,000 of our own toward the ideas we think can best help American Airlines become a more nimble airline, one that can change the way we think about air travel and solve some of the biggest issues for customers. 
 
But we’d love to let you pick the ideas you like best, yourselves. So please, give us a shout or send us a tweet and let’s schedule some time to show you this fantastic work. And who knows? If you like what you see, maybe you’ll also restructure with a more nimble agency relationship – to match your more nimble airline. 
 
Thank you for your courage and vision. 
 
Best,
 
John

Are you Talking the Talk or Building the Tech?

One of the most amazing and wonderful things in the last couple of years here at Victors & Spoils has been dynamic tension that’s been created between being an advertising agency and a tech start-up. That tension that’s been created by mashing up the two cultures has been profound for me.

When we started we noticed that even the most tech-based agencies were analogue at their core. We asked ourselves a couple of questions. First, what would happen if we took the functions of a typical ad agency and digitized them? The way we communicate. How we work in a massively distributed way across the globe. Hence, we created Agency Machine. Taking an analogue business process and making it digital is a messy affair, full of trials and errors. All said, it’s working pretty darn well and gives us the ability to scale globally and rapidly.

Next we thought about what we could build for our clients. It’s something that has intrigued me for a while, and was an inspiration for Alex Bogusky and me to write Baked-In. Lot’s of agencies talk about building their own IP but their own structure gets in the way.  Forty percent of the Victors & Spoils team is here to build proprietary technology. We feel it’s the only way to go beyond just building campaigns for clients to building platforms that scale across media and can be massively scalable. Yesterday we launched our second tech product, Fan Machine, working with Harley-Davidson as our launch client. Mark-Hans Richer, Dino Bernnachi and their team at Harley-Davidson have been great partners in exploring ways to shift the paradigm of how advertising is created. We want to make the experience better for creatives, customers and brands by cutting out fat and facilitating faster, deeper conversations between brands, consumers and creatives.

Agency Machine and Fan Machine are just the start of what we’re building. It’s not just about creating great work, it’s also about building the digital tools to change the way campaigns are born and executed.