• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, February 1, 2016

OK -- so agencies have been trying to set themselves apart since, well, the first agency was launched way back in...oh...I have no idea. Since then, they've been breaking down the silos, unbundling, re-bundling, specializing, integrating, merging, doing the startup thing and, generally, acting like a schizophrenic drug user looking for his next fix.

And so it comes without surprise that a trio of Chicago ad professionals has launched a new agency that, OMG, promises to be totally different. Frequency540 Co-Founder along with Brian Rolling and Kate Weidner have launched SRW which is a "mix of strategic communications and content marketing...a new venture that has a lean and mean model."

What's lean and mean about it? According to Stone: "SRW is the agency without walls. Our clients benefit from tapping into our proprietary network of global talent, developed and nurtured over the past two decades. This allows us to bring the right expert to every project, delivering verifiable results faster and for less cost."

So it's a freelance network. Nifty. And wicked different, right?

The press release bombastically leads off with: "It's not just Google shaking things up in the West Loop. This week, Chicago's agency scene experienced a bit of seismic activity with the launch of SRW -- a band of agency exiles who just might be onto something."

Seismic activity, people! Seismic!!

But it will be awesome because, according to Rolling: "We live in a virtual world. Brands no longer want to bankroll fancy, expensive agency offices with yoga studios. Clients can gain significant savings by investing in a vast network of top resources, instead of being constrained by the talent within the four walls of a particular agency."

There will, shocker, be a content marketing component to the new agency. Weidner explains. saying: "As a journalist and a storyteller, I've been trained in the art of engagement. I'm not excited by telling people what they want to hear, but I love helping them discover what they need to know. And I believe when brands tap into what people need, they flourish."

So to help brands flourish, Stone says, "We encourage all our clients to quit advertising to achieve greater results. After all, we did."

Oh please. Can we stop with the incessant need to play the re-invention game? No matter how you break it down or latch on to the buzzword of the week, everyone in this business basically does the same thing; make stuff which encourages people to buy a brand's products.

Why is it so hard to admit that's called advertising?