Where are the new radicals?

(and no, this is not a post searching for those (admittedly good) one hit wonders).

Last night, I was lucky enough to be in Toronto thanks to an invite from the terrific people at the ICA.

And it seems apt perhaps, on the week of the 30th birthdays of two agencies who in many ways were responsible for me working in advertising (BBH and Wieden and Kennedy), that I wanted to try and make a rallying cry for the industry to return to its radical roots.   Not simply radical as in different, but radical in its truest meaning - going to the root or origin of what we can do and what we exist to do: make stuff that is the best solution to a client's business problem.

It was lovely to meet a bunch of really smart folk here;  thank you for making me so welcome.  For anyone else who's interested the slides are below.

Time for true radicals

View more presentations from Gareth Kay

Comments

[david mccann]

The Professional Radicals thought and line was used by HHCL in the 90's and is a very strong portent of change.

The industry is shifting on many fronts, but still needs to re learn its roots in creating interesting ideas that integrate people with brands in the world they live in and not the world we inhabit

Great piece Gareth

[Gareth]

David
Probably lost without vo:the start of this was a quasi eulogy to hhcl

[Hosting]

what a cool blog this one! I'm going to share with my facebook friends right now.

[Jeremy Abbett]

Loving the direction and vigor. A couple of years ago I proposed the idea of R&D in an agency which you touched upon.

Can you expand upon your slides (Communication R&D and 70/20/10) and how you do it at Goodby?

[Hugh Bateman]

brilliant - a refreshing blast of uncommon sense !

[Brant Kennedy]

Great post, very well written! I've bookmarked to return as I see several post titles of interest.

[Justin Smith Jersey]

I am going through this post and thinking of it’s theme and attempting to grasp what's this post regarding.