Why we love sports.

There is a whole strata of people in our industry who don't do anything but talk. If you look closely, they've never done anything but talk. They never will do anything but talk.

They have, these people, no discernible ability to make ads or to win over clients. But they're immensely talented at talking, at sitting in judgment and in saying what they would do if they weren't so busy...so busy talking.

There was one ECD I worked for not long ago. I was working for him (not the other way around) because he ostensibly had a relationship with the CEO of a major client. The client needed commercials in just a few weeks.

This ECD couldn't write the commercials. He didn't have the time to look at reels and find the right director. He didn't come to the edits. He did, however, talk well enough to have us do 57 versions of one :15.

He could talk.

That's all he could do.

In sports there are guys with rippling muscles who boast that they can rip the cover off the ball, or run through the defense like sand through a sieve. Then someone hands them a bat and they whiff. Or a ball and they fumble.

The poseurs are quickly discovered.

I think if you looked deep inside most agencies you'd see that 20% of the people do 80% of the work. And another 20% do 80% of the talking.

There are all sorts of people in the industry who spout that "the agency model is broken," or similar tripe.

Nah.

The agency model isn't broken.

It's been talked to death.