Deconstructing our vision (eye chart included)

Everyone wants a good agency.  But there’s a larger question: who’s it good for?

Many of us have worked at some remarkably creative shops. The work product was rewarding,  but life for the rank and file came at a high price. Every Friday, word would come down from on hight: you were expected this weekend. The account people ran scared. And divorce rates skyrocketed.

Elsewhere, account-driven shops are either focused on profitability or happy to let the client dictate the creative. This leads to a short-term win: while the client got to (literally) direct, the campaigns will almost certainly underperform, and then nobody’s happy.   

The point is, nobody’s gotten it right, to date—profit has come at the expense of quality, or people have come at the expense of the clients or the agency’s leadership.

It’s like a dysfunctional circle of life.

And, while this is impossibly tough, we aren’t going to settle for this “well that’s how it is” crap, here at School of Thought.

The work, the clients, and the agency’s team can all be great.  And if we do that, we should be able to eek out a little profit, too.

That's the vision. That's what we are striving for.   

Hopefully, you think it's a good one, too.