Expansion. Collapse.

Many decades ago I worked on an occasional assignment or two with an art director who was not my usual partner. We were better friends than we were partners. My feeling was she never worked that hard, and got by by being charming and counting on her copy partners to carry the day. However, despite S's shortcomings as an ad person (some years ago, she left the business to become a therapist) she was someone with whom you could run an errand or grab lunch of even just go for a short walk, when that sort of thing was permissable.

One day S and I went for a walk in midtown. This was the early 90s and it seemed like half the retail storefronts in mid-town Manhattan had been taken over by the Italian clothing chain Benetton. 

I never much cottoned (or polyestered) to the brand and said something disparaging about its proliferation. 

S gave me a withering look. And then said something I've remembered for all these many years.

"Don't you know, George," S said, "Companies expand to the point of absolute collapse."

It's funny how sometimes something obvious, but well-expressed can capture a larger mania in a way that has you applying it to nearly everything.

At the time in advertising, most agencies were still independent. Sure, there was Interpublic. But as a student of the ad business, their consolidations made sense. When McCann had the Buick business, they could grown no bigger in the auto category. So essentially they bought Campbell-Ewald who had the Chevrolet business. That let them dominate their markets and still find a way to grow. That sort of holding company chazarai made sense to me.

Down the street, the Needham Harper Steers combination with Doyle Dane Bernbach made less sense. Unless, Needham's strength in Chicago would complement Doyle Dane's strength in New York. Nonetheless, there seemed to be a legitimate reason for being.

And then the floodgates, a la Benetton opened. WPP started buying agencies like a sailor spending money while on shore-leave. They wanted to own every retail facing they could, the better to dominate share of wallet.

I remember once interviewing with some executives at Omnicom's Diversified Agency Services group. These were the men who ran the hundreds of agencies that weren't the big pillar agencies of Omnicom. I naively asked, "what's your digital strategy? Why so you have Tribal DDB, Atmosphere, Proximity and a dozen other dopey names I can no longer remember." They no longer liked the cut of my jib and the interview was over.

About ten years ago, I realized Omnicom, Publicis, IPG, WPP was Coke versus Pepsi. Like Coke and Pepsi (and now Keurig Dr. Pepper) seek to dominate the grocery story, the big holding companies wanted every ad dollar they could get. Small players are pushed into the worst position, potential customers can't find them, they are beaten on price and muscled out of the way.

Now, of course, all these years later the final chapter of S's analysis is coming painfully true.

"The point of collapse" part.

WPP has fired 104,000 employees in just eight years. More than 52% of all employees.
That's collapse.

The holding companies, for so long stealing market share by offering lower prices (or selling their services at an actual loss) provide no value add to clients. As hard as it is to stop an inflationary spiral, most economists will tell you an de-flationary spiral is even harder to arrest. It's hard not to offer lower and lower prices when you've trained the market to demand them.

Of course, advertising will continue to exists.

As Dr. Johnson said so many centuries ago, "Promise, large promise is the soul of advertising." By that I mean companies and brands need to make promises to induce consumer interest. Someone needs to make these promises dance and sing. It's often people like me.

When all the rafters and beams of the current advertising hegemony have finally fallen and burnt, when the money-people have finally extracted the last of their nine-figure payouts and pillaged the shells of the companies they strip-mined, including any and all pension funds, when they're paid off (and they're always paid off first) and vendors never are, brands large, small and in between will still have needs.

They'll need to make a promise.
They'll need to make it interesting.
They'll need to make it memorable.

My 3M schema is one of my many ways of coalescing what I do.

Someone will need to make you:

1. Meaningful. ie explain what you do and why it matters.
2. Modern. ie so you look relevant and timely.
3. Mnemonic. ie memorable, so one ad stings for a long time.

Collapse is here.

Rebuilding ain't far off.