There’s a new style agency in town!

There is a new world order and if they want to be relevant to it, they need to stop resisting it and learn the new ways of doing business.

When it’s a few guys and girls from Durban (with nothing but what we grub-staked ourselves) trying to take on the universe, well – let’s just say there are lots of tears and precious few smiles so far.  Clients are so ring-fenced by traditional agencies (who are clueless about the pace of evolution we are currently living through) and refuse to let outside opinion in, probably on the basis that agencies like us are a threat, which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Apple’s human moderated App Store ensures that the quality bar for a successful app is very high.  As a result, bright talented people want to work and compete in a high quality environment which is why full-brained talent (right and left) gravitates towards iOS dev because it excites and engages them full spectrum.  It’s not always that they can’t achieve similar results, it’s that the quality talent doesn’t care to bother… so you get the B-squad usually coding the Android app or Blackberry app or it’s outsourced and doesn’t get the benefit of the thought process that Apple app dev forces.

After all, each app starts with, “Well, what’s possible?” and that answer is very different in each app ecosystem. You can do things in the Apple ecosystem that you have no hope of pulling off on Blackberry because the tools, APIs, whatever, literally don’t exist.  This means that you have to understand a few basics of this new world and that it is driven by talent who are now no longer so dependent on the suits.  Today is more about talent management than running a business. You have to address and engage your talent in full, offering them a balance of money, culture and meaningful contributions to society.

You know why, talented people are passionate. Because they give a shit and they want to work with people who give a shit.  This means that they are far more expressive and demanding in their needs, rights and that they expect to be able to have a seat at the table in the discussion around the nature of work that a studio takes on.

At immedia, if enough of our talent feel that they don’t enjoy a particular project or client, we attempt to collectively understand the impact of gracefully exiting the work. The consequences of that decision are collectively understood.  This may seem idealistic, but the reality is any project first starts with people eager to solve a problem. Without an engagement.

The bottom line is that we can’t build our agencies the way our parents did. This is a different time, space and opportunity.