“We’re not in Kansas anymore” just about sums up the state of the advertising industry at present. The uncertain hills and valleys of “new media” have replaced the flat plains of “traditional media.”
Agencies worldwide are coming to terms with a plethora of new thinking and a roster of clients that demand new reach on an ever-shrinking marketing dollar. Clients that say things like, “Give me a YouTube campaign” and, “Can you buy the word Aardvark for our next media-rich Web 2.0 launch.”
But there is hope. If you change your perspective just a teensy bit you can see this landscape as an incredible opportunity. We hear “the death of TV” played out in the media but how about the birth of the multi-screen society as a vast filmic opportunity?
Good thinking hasn’t gone away; content is still king of its domain, it just takes a three-dimensional chess-playing mind to be a “creative” today. It’s like this: the chances of doing great work have just increased ten-fold and that is as exciting as, well, the birth of television.
Here in Kansas City, MO I am met with the same challenges being faced on Madison Avenue and in San Francisco. I just have the added tension of making prospective clients see Kansas City as a viable venue on the ad agency planet.
KC? it’s that place you fly over when you’re doing the coasts. But here’s the thing. It is very firmly on the map. Using the same dynamic thinking shift in our industry as a spring-board, and another (teensy) head turning twist in perspective, you can see KC as an incredible opportunity.
Some surprising facts: Kansas City is in fact the fifth biggest advertising community in the nation. We have top-notch film production capabilities and of course award-winning ad agencies out the Mizoo. (Even my agency has won its fair share of accolades nationwide.) Consider that KC is only three hours from anywhere in the states and you can see the considerable benefits.
Someone should do an ad campaign on it…multi-media of course. So next time you’re compelled to ignore KC, think again; just like the arrival of RSS and interactive media, things are just getting interesting in the land of the BBQ. In fact, you just might be right at home here.
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