What's A Metaphor You?

Sorry about this, but a sports metaphor is coming.

I'm not much of a sports-fan. And I try to avoid using clichés but every once in a long while, like in the case of this long-suffering Knicks fan, 53 years, a sports metaphor is the only thing that can suffice.

The Knicks after more than half a century of dismal, essentially ego-centric basketball, won last night the NBA finals. Before the Knicks beat the Cleveland Cavaliers to advance to the finals, the Cavaliers' coach, the esteemed Kenny Atkinson said, "I think analytically, I think we've won the -- I said three out of three [games in the series], we're two out of three in the expected wins," Atkinson told reporters. "I don't know if you guys follow that -- the expected score. We've won two out of three."

That in a nutshell is the genesis of today's post.

We won. Though we lost. Screw the score, the analytics say so.

For most of the last thirty years, as know-nothings from the accountancy-consultancy-human-resourcery-world devastated the advertising industry, we've looked at analytics and fake-metrics (like specious awards for work that never ran, was never paid for and had no material market success) as a measure of an agency's success or a network's.

We're agency of the year and have a 55% attrition rate and have lost 65% of our revenue. We're network of the year and have lost major client after major client and can't win new ones. We're "the trusted growth partner for the world's leading brands" but we've destroyed half of our own major brands and have been for ten years, while proclaiming ourselves the growth partner, shrinkng.

Updated. And now 100% bushwa free.

As an industry, we've thrown away just about every construction that made any agency ever strong.

You can look at all the numbers and money-ball data you want. Nothing really beats hitting a clutch double.

Instead, we've thrown away long-term partnerships--between art-directors and copywriters. Between creatives and creative directors. Between planners and creatives. Between account and creatives. Between creative and the clients they work with and for.

We've thrown all that out for an analytic-efficiency-just-in-time-staffing approach. And then we PR the shit out of the result and say things like, "I think analytically, I think we've won."

Since leaving WPP in a 'secure financial position' just 12 months ago,

WPP's 'secure' stock has fallen from 39.77 to 18.46.

Since ten years ago, WPP's market cap has plummeted. 

It was $31,000,000,000 a decade ago.

It's about $4,000,000,000 today.

That's like turning eight dollars into one.

Most agencies no longer even have creatives on staff. Much less long-time partners who rely on each other and make each other better. Most agencies no longer have people on brands who even use their clients' products, much less know the customer, know the engineers, know the clients. Instead, agencies "scope" people for an hour here and an hour there--that's efficient, their well-parboiled numbers say. So that's how they sail their ship.

Most agencies hire hot hands. Not thoughtful, adjustable, team-oriented people.

They hire the people who have won awards in last year's shows-- work as above, that never ran, was never paid for, wasn't created under real conditions and had no material market success.

The Knicks ran for more than half-a-century just as holding companies and agencies operate today.

Selflessness and team seldom entered the discussion.

On the Knicks, from their vaunted pick of Patrick Ewing in 1985, personnel and personal egoism ruled. Ewing, while still a rookie, refused to play out of position, alongside all-star Bill Cartwright, for the good of the team. Ewing, despite a "hall-of-fame" career and a raft of gaudy numbers, never won a championship. 

The Knicks had Sprewell, a magnificent scorer who played little defense and seldom passed the ball or passed up a shot. The same can be said of "hall-of-famer" Carmelo Anthony, a player who never saw a ball he wouldn't hog, or shot he wouldn't take. 

As Sam Spade (Humphrey Bogart) said to "the gunsel" (Elijah Cook, Jr.) in John Huston's great version of "The Maltese Falcon," "the cheaper the crook, the gaudier the patter."

That's been, it seems to me, the guiding mis-light of the last half-century of advertising and the world.

"The cheaper the agency/network, the gaudier their self-promotion."

"The smaller the ideas, the bigger the trophy case."

"The more spurious the results, the more well-produced the case-study."

If you watch any of the mandatory press interviews with any of the Knicks' players after Saturday night clincher against the San Antonio Spurs, you won't hear the word "I." Instead you hear about help. A belief in the team. A respect for the organization. A trust in each other.

These attributes cannot be gained when you are mercenary and run a mercenary organization--a sports team or a business or a nation. 

The construction of winningness takes time, risk, money, thoughtfulness and a plan more well-formed than the prospect of a short-term triumph.

These are all metaphors.

For human-relationships.
For sports.
For business.
And yes, for amerika.

Nothing good comes merely from money.

It comes from human connection.
It comes from leadership.
It comes from buy-in of a plan.
It comes from respect--for self and for others.
It comes from honesty--doing your job.
It comes from truth. Doing what you say.
And sacrifice of self.

Success isn't derived from $70,000,000 payouts, bs about share prices and bald-men holding hollow anthropomorphic trophies surrounded by store-bought smiles and well-varnished self-aggrandizement.

Success is not found on rented yachts, bottomless rosé, back-slapping and AI-generated press-releases.

Just ask the Knicks.