• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, January 20, 2015

When an agency gleefully tells you they've been toiling diligently on client work for 15 years and then in the same sentence informs you they are rebranding, the natural response -- well, at least mine -- is, "okay, so it took you 15 years to rebrand yourself?

Okay -- so we all know it's not that simple. Agencies are busy. Agencies are terrible at doing work for themselves. So 15 years? Eh. Not so bad. But guess how they are rebranding? Yeah, they're changing their name from Esparza Advertising to Esparza. Yeah, that's right. Like every other ad agency on the planet, they, too, do not want to be associated with advertising.

I get that agencies need to do more than just create TV, radio, print, online and social ads but, seriously, an ad agency is an ad agency.

Of the rebranding *cough* name change, Esparza Founder Del Esparza said: “We’re very optimistic about how we’re positioned as a business. The kind of solutions we’re providing our clients, I feel from a business perspective, this is going to allow us to grow at a completely different pace than if we had not approached it in the manner we are.”

Adding to Esparza's comment, ECD Adam Greenwood said, “Thirty, 40, 50, 60 years ago in advertising, if you had enough money you could hammer a thought or premise or an idea down someone’s throat. Now we live in a world where you can’t do that. You have to create something worth caring about, and then people will share it.”

Yeah. An ad. That people share .