One day I think that I might like to start an agency. I don’t know that I would name it after myself because my last name is hard to pronounce and the whole letters thing has already come and gone (highlighted when Messner merged with Euro, forming MVBMS Euro RSCG).
I had often wondered how I would get started. Would I have to walk off in a huff from my current agency with one of their clients to use as the cornerstone for my agency? Barrie D’Rozario Murphy did it that way by picking off United Airlines from Fallon. I think that all’s fair in this business, though not all quarters thought it was the classiest thing to do to the beleagured agency.
There must be another way to get a new agency up and running. There is. Where’s My Jetpack? has a conveient step-by-step process for starting an agency. I might begin setting mine up today.
My absolute favorite must-have for a new agency is:
“If you have cool furniture, it is crucial that you show it off on a “Tour Our Agency” section. Potential clients expect that good work is done in a trendy, quirky environment.”
This stuck out to me because, when I began in the business, I only ever wanted to work at one place. I honed in on that place, focusing all of my attention to it. And I thought to myself, “self, this place is so cool – crazy furniture, great office space, concrete floors, funky colors, foosball, ping-pong, basketball, etc and so on.” It was clear in my junior mind that the surroundings fostered this creativity and were a main reason why the agency did such great work.
Then I visited another agency.
And another.
By the time I visited Ogilvy, (the type of agency, with its bigness and history, that I KNEW would be staid) and they had the same interior, my dream of differentiating agency interiors was gone.
There is even a website that shows off the cool agency interiors, and they are cool, but they sort of blend into each other in a way. Not that potential new clients need to know that. All they need to know is that my soon-to-be-started agency has an interior that reflects its ability to incubate great ideas and its size “also enables [it] to approach every client in a “hands on” way. [It is] able to provide “the personal touch and customized service unavailable in large, corporate agencies.”
Where’s My Jetpack, you made my day.
And kept my dream alive. This new agency thing is not as hard as it seems.
the daily (ad) biz 
Which Ogilvy office?
The one in NYC has red carpet and lots of corporate looking furniture.
It was the New York office I was referring to, though I don’t remember it all that well anymore. I thought that the red carpet and black walls and foosball table (?) and creatives with crazy haircuts and ironic t-shirts fit right in with the general agency decor.
I was visiting New York with a girl I was dating at the time and she had worked at Ogilvy as an account exec (I like advertising girls, I can’t help it), so I popped in and had a quick look around.