One-stop-shop VS One-man-show

Today, John Moore points out Dan Pink’s idea that talented people in marketing and advertising no longer need to be a part of a larger organization, they can go it alone.

But is that what’s best? Are the talented people better off on their own, where they have to spend a large portion of their time cultivating business to fill the rest of their schedule?

As part of a small agency, we talk about this one a lot. I think the role of the agency is changing, and the giant organizations are going to be slowly and steadily replaced by organizations of about 20 or fewer people.

I do think, however, that there are efficiencies to be realized by not quite working alone. There’s an advantage to having a copywriter in house with an art director. It’s good to have a go-to account person to field all calls from clients, instead of allowing them open access to the designers and creative directors.

There’s a level of organization that simply provides better service to clients, more comprehensive and immediate service. It’s a more efficient and productive way to work to allow the left-brained folks to do their thing, and the right-brained folks to do theirs.

My bet is that five years from now, boutique agencies are going to be the first choice for businesses looking for marketing, advertising and public relations services. One-stop-shops have far too much overhead, and one-man-shows just don’t have enough to offer.

People as brands

We all know about building brand identity and developing brand personality, but what about building personality brands? What about taking the identity and personality of an individual, or a group of people, and creating brands out of it?

Think of the Rolling Stones. First, they were just musicians. Then they were the Rolling Stones. Now, their branded apparel is sold in mega-retailers all over the place. They’ve done a decent job of building a brand through their personality.

Now think of Tom Cruise. He was riding high on a wave of great publicity for years, but recently the Tom Cruise brand has been tarnished rather severely. Whether or not this will have a huge financial impact on him remains to be seen, but the point is that he hurt the Tom Cruise Brand.

Publicists are generally the ones dealing with promoting someone’s personality as a brand, and I’m not claiming to be a publicist. I just find intriguing the balance between the person and the brand that they project .

Can you achieve fame, can you achieve notoriety, without projecting some sort of brand? Is it more likely today for personalities to become brands than 10, 20 years?

Does anyone really care?