By Orla O’Connor

20:20

Last night we were lucky enough to attend Creative Social.  The topic was what does adland in 2020 look like.  With threats coming from every angle to diminish the current agency model. How will it evolve how will we survive?  Although there was some conflict in ideas there was also a lot that all speakers agreed upon.  

There needs to be more diversity.  It’s largely acknowledged fact that greater diversity is needed in adland.  But the speakers were also talking about diversity in thought and education models.  With self learning challenging traditional school learning and exams how can ad land attract and contribute in a changing educational landscape.  

There was also a consensus on the idea that ad land will no longer be making just ads.  The model will have to develop and as we begin making work such as product innovation where the ROI can be tracked precisely.  The current billing model will then have to change.  Ed from Creature, one of the speakers, was commenting on Creature recent retainment of the IP on some of their work which will contribute to the agencies revenue stream.  

We also need to be more relevant.  Companies take so much from the environment and society it’s about time they gave something back.  And unless they start interacting in real life issues companies could very easily find themselves becoming irrelevant.  What if Coke sponsored the jungle in Calais and build settlements.  They would be acting out their proposition of joy and creating future life long consumers.  

But to be honest Ian Wharton put it best during our agency visits today, when we asked him his opinion on the matter.  We simply don’t know.  We will never know.  We will never be able to see the future with 20:20 vision, we can only see it with long sight and so we may fall short of challenges right in front of us.  Ian went on to say all we do know is humans will still be humans in 2020 we will still have similar wants, needs, reactions and expectations.  Human behaviour will largely remain the same and if that is the only certainty for 2020 maybe that should be something we focus more on.