I'm Grant Sanders from SAND.
I have an analogy for you.
An ad agency is like a tree.
Trees come in a lot of different shapes and varieties.
With specialized parts like bark and roots and a trunk and branches and leaves that all do different things while they all work together.
(You know, like media, creative, account service, digital? You get it.)
A tree can be quite amazing — a marvel of nature.
A tree's prime directive is growth.
To grab sunlight, carbon dioxide and water, and photosynthesize the shit out of everything to survive.
(The same is true of agencies, but the three things they need to grab up to survive are workers, time and new business.)
The most successful trees are large and heavy to compete for sunlight.
(Sunlight = clients. Agencies are always pitching.)
Trees are slow to change. And rigid.
You can't get apples from a Douglas fir, am I right?
I've spent a good amount of time in the trees — agencies.
But these days, I'm wondering if being a tree makes any sense at all.
Why be big, slow, and rigid?
Why pitch? Or grow at all?
Why get caught in that "upward" spiral?
So today, I'm standing before you with an ax in my hand.
The "agency" label is getting chopped.
I'm changing my web address and putting something different out there.
Something small, nimble, productive, and resource-rich.
That can run circles around trees. But also live and work among them.