• by Jeff Einstein , February 9, 2005

JWT CEO Bob Jeffrey recently announced a new paradigm for his behemoth agency. "Time is the new currency," he said. "Our job is to ensure that more people spend more time with our clients' brands. We need to create ideas that people want to spend more time with. The better the idea the more time people will spend with it."

Bob is clearly on the right track in an age of time-shifting technology. But if time is the currency, what are we buying? The currency may be time, but it seems to me that the objective -- what we want to buy with our time -- is quality. The quality of the perceived brand impression will reflect the quality of the time (especially the most recent time) spent with it. Better ideas, he suggests, will motivate consumers to spend more quality time with the brand.

The introduction of any new idea, however, happens only with the implicit understanding that implementation of the new idea will replace something old. Not merely augment, but replace. Time invested in new ideas always replaces time previously invested in old ideas. Our dilemma: 21st-century life leaves neither time nor room for the introduction of new ideas, and the introduction of new ideas demands both -- all the time.

The insatiable nature of functionally limitless bandwidth places enormous stress on our ability to promote quality. We suddenly have all the virtual room in the world to put things, so we do -- everything we can lay our hands on.

The results leave a lot to be desired, and come only at a very high price. Not long ago we knew that advertising worked half the time, but we didn't know which half. We now know that advertising works about 0.02 percent of the time, but we know exactly which 0.02 percent gets the job done. It's been an expensive lesson; our rush to fill the pipeline has demoted the creative agency culture, and promoted the media agency culture instead. This is a recipe for quantity, not quality. This is a test.

Test over. We now know we can buy time. Lord knows it's there to buy. Now it is incumbent for creative agencies and media agencies with creative components to reinvigorate the creative culture and restore it to its rightful position atop the advertising hierarchy. It is also time for major advertisers to adjust their own focus accordingly and recognize that creative quality is the only way to sustain attention and buy quality time in an impossibly cluttered media environment.

(A few of my suggestions on how clients can partner with their agencies to reinstitute a driving creative culture can be found in my "Creativeculture.ppt" file on Einstein's Corner -- http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/einsteinscorner -- under the "Files" menu selection on the left side of the home page.)

After all, the media can only deliver the brand. The perceived quality of the brand experience and the amount of time spent within it is a byproduct of quality creative (and perhaps enhanced functionality) delivered to the right place at the right time.

Note my warning above, however: New ideas must eventually replace old ideas, and our personal bandwidth for new ideas is nowhere near as limitless as the virtual bandwidth where so many of them eventually wind up.

Thus the triumph of the creative culture must happen in our hearts and between our ears first -- as an intuition. Then comes the hard part. We must make the decision to follow our intuition -- per Jeffrey's example -- to breathe life into it.

But first we must say goodbye to something else. We have to clear the decks a bit, and set the stage. What exactly are we willing to let go of in order to make room for the formulation and implementation of new ideas? My suggestion follows: We must surrender the idea that we can somehow compensate for a lack of quality with quantity. We must surrender the idea that delivery of the message is somehow more important than the message itself.

Your thoughts?

Many thanks, as always, and best to you and yours...

Please note: The Einstein's Corner discussion group at http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/einsteinscorner/ is dedicated to exploring the adverse effects of our addictions to technology and media on the quality of our lives, both at work and at home. Please feel free to drop by and join the discussion.