The mystique that used to exist around creating great ads is fading away. More and more tools are becoming available that allow companies and individuals to do things that only the agencies could have done a few years ago. Now there are web based editing tools that can be used to make, edit and even customize ads. Here is a New York Times article about just that.
The leading advertising agencies will be the ones who stay on top of these changes and find ways to leverage them through innovative approaches, thus maintaining their value. Agencies have to focus on great concepts that can be leveraged in multiple Medias, often playing off other.

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Hearing aids are mismarketed. Right now, I should be trying to figure out how to pay $3000 for some espionage-ready X-man hearing skills. I’m talking targeted, telescopic microamps that add 100 zeros to the Whisper 2000. Seriously, these things should make the Bionic Man noise when I jut out my neck and crank heavy reverb when I suck in sound, hands on hips.
“Honey, the neighbors have termites.”

VO5: “Hair treatment so revolutionary, even China gets it!”
China: “Saaaay, this V05 hot oil is PERFECT for frying every American man, woman, and child into yankee pigdog rangoon! 21st Dynasty can ya feel me!?”

Brand Noise has a post about a “hot new idea shop” called Fahrenheit 212. The post links to a BusinessWeek article about the firm. From that article:

Clients think of the firm as a way to make long-shot bets without having to use their own research and development resources. “Samsung is a lean organization. We can’t afford to have people coming up with ideas that don’t work,” says Chief Marketing Officer Gregory Lee. “The people at Fahrenheit are very helpful because they are working on ideas that can fail–it allows you to experiment a bit.” What’s more, Fahrenheit ties much of its compensation to the success of the product, making it an even safer bet.

I think the focus on innovation that the marketplace has been entertaining for the last several years presages more and more of these kind of enterprises. Back when we were starting bigwidesky, my partner Mike told me of a survey of the clients of ad agencies he’d read in which the single biggest gripe was that the agencies weren’t bringing any powerful ideas. I, for one, am happy to sidle up and fill that hole with the most amazing ideas we can concoct. Clearly we’re not the only ones with this ambition.

A very accomplished, well-known and respected ad guy spoke in St. Louis on Friday. I was in the audience. He was singing the praises of the Mark Ecko/Air Force One stunt. I asked him if the inauthenticity of the stunt (ie. that wasn’t really Air Force One) might make peeps feel like they’d been had.
He responded to the effect that it wasn’t inauthentic because it fit the brand.