Madison Avenue Makeover: The Transformation of HUGE and Redefinition of the Ad Agency Business
Michael Farmer
LID Publishing (July 2023)

“If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative.” David Ogilvy

The title of one of Marshall Goldsmith’s most recent books suggests that “what got you here won’t get you there.” My own opinion is that what got you here won’t even allow you to remain here, however and wherever “here” and “there” are defined. Charles Kettering once observed, “If you’ve always done it that way, it’s probably wrong.”

Years ago I headed the public relations department of the regional office of an international advertising agency. Then and even more so now, changes in the advertising agencies and PR firms occurred slower, MUCH slower than in the industries in which their clients were involved.  Probably the most powerful force was the world wide web (developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1993)  and its impact on customer options and expectations. Change was the only constant. Client relationships exemplified what Charles Darwin had predicted: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

According to Michael Farmer, “Advertising, like science, operates under an existing paradigm — a theory of advertising — and a very specific paradigm has been in place since about 1960. Let’s call this the creative paradigm. It holds that advertising is about creativity, which is required to generate improved results for clients.” However, what this “theoretical underpinning for the practice of advertising does not explain is that for many decades, “the [begin italics] business [end italics] has not met the expectations of [begin italics] this theory 0end italics] of advertising, as I describe it in Madison Avenue Manslaughter. This suggests the need for a new paradigm.”

What are the gaps between theory and outcomes? Farmer identifies and examines four:

1. Moribund growth rates for advertisers
2. Declining prices for agency work
3. Turnout of agency relationships
4. Talent issues

In Madison Avenue Makeover, Farmer examines two separate but related subjects: WHAT that “New paradigm” should be, and, HOW to accommodate the perils as well as possibilities of the new paradigm, guided and informed by the process by which the Huge agency was transformed. It is important to stress at this point that the more an organization is in need of transformation, the more difficult it will be to complete it. In Leading Change (1995), James O’Toole suggests that the greatest resistance to change tends to be cultural in nature, the result of what he so aptly characterizes as “the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom.”

Farmer has created what I view as an operations manual template whose structure, with only minor modifications, could be used by change agents in almost any organization, whatever its size and nature may be. Pay special attention to the Appendix: Huge’s Reorganization FAQs thast was prepared and distributed by Huge’s Executive Leadership Team (ELT).

Madison Avenue Makeover comes about as close as any book can to providing the information, insights, and counsel that would be provided by Mat Baxter (Huge’s CEO) and Mark Manning (its COO) if they had been retained full-time to plan and then implement a transformation plan for your organization. (In this hypothetical arrangement, Farmer would be involved in the same ways and to the same extent that he was with the Huge project.) They would review the entire process step-by-step with you and your associates, then your organization proceeds accordingly. In the absence of Baxter, Manning, and Farmer to serve as advisors, you and your associates will be well-served by the material in Madison Avenue Makeover.

Obviously, specifics would vary among organizations but each leadership team would probably begin by addressing questions such as these at its initial meeting:

o What is the purpose of this get-together? (See Pages 58-60)
o What makes a company great? (60-62)
o What sort of company do we want to be? (63-64)
o How do we set up the company for success (64-65)
o What are the roles of the CXO and the COO [or equivalents]? (65-66)
o What are our priorities for the next twelve months? (67)

Most organizations follow a paradigm that is inadequate and/or obsolete. “A new paradigm sets new directions, and new issues will be encountered along the way, even long after the paradigm has first been embraced. Huge’s results may suffer as it attempts to wind down the old and implement the new.” Hence the importance of formulating a “paradigm results” list, one that “provides a new template for the industry. It is by no means an abandonment of creativity. Instead, the new approach puts creativity, products, and organization together in a focused mission.

Here are two concluding suggestions: Highlight key passages, and, keep a lined notebook near at hand while reading Madison Avenue Makeover in which you record your comments, questions, action steps (preferably with deadlines), page references as well as your responses to the questions posed and to lessons you have learned. (Pay close attention to the “Key Points” at the end of chapters.) These two simple tactics will facilitate, indeed expedite frequent reviews of key material later. I have scheduled a quarterly review of the material in the Appendix. Your organization should create and then update its own Reorganization FAQs.