First, let me apologize for yet another long gap in posts. What can I say except being an attorney takes up a hell of a lot of my time and energy. Anyway…
I just read this article on Medium: Innovation Won’t Save the Creative Department, by Samuel Tait. In it, Mr. Tait argues that the traditional creative department in advertising, in fact, the advertising agency itself, will be dead by next year. The very idea sounded Chicken Little-esque, until I read the piece.
He makes a compelling argument.
I’m not going to go into the details here (you can and should read it yourself) but rather I point it out to you for your marketing. If he is at all correct, even if the agencies don’t actually die out (very unlikely in his timeframe, at least), you should be looking to the future for your marketing targets.
Instead of spending your money and time trying to get work from the agencies, perhaps a shift to the innovation companies themselves, the (former?) end-clients is a better way to go. As he points out, start-ups are stealing creative talent from the agencies; shouldn’t you follow where that creative talent goes?
In many ways, this will make your marketing more effective. If you send promos to a mega-agency where you may only be a fit for one or two of their accounts you will have a difficult time standing out among the gazillion photographers (and illustrators, etc.) who do the same. I suggest, instead, you go after that individual start-up client itself, directly, where you will be one of many fewer trying to get their attention. If they like your work, you may even make them an advocate for you to their own agency! (Just don’t let them convince you to work for nothing or too little, but that is another discussion for another time.)
It’s entirely possible that, in the near future, there may be more in-house photography jobs with these start-ups as well. Many of these companies want to own all of the intellectual property created for them and the easiest way for them to accomplish that is to hire photographers as actual employees (the copyright in work made by an employee as a part of her/his employment is owned by the employer). Yes, you’d be trading your copyrights for employment (real employment, with benefits), but in many ways, that may be a good trade-off. You may even be able to negotiate equity as these other creatives are (again, see the Tait article).
It’s worth considering this new order as described by Mr. Tait. At the very least, it may offer your business more opportunities. As always, though, the first step is making your best work. Do that, then explore the new targets.