The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Taught Me That Ad Agencies Are Ridiculous

Let me tell you about the moment I realized how poorly agency life had prepared me for a job in advertising. 

It’s 2019, and I’m the new marketing director at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I’ve come to this job after 18 years at ad agencies, leading both creative and media teams.

It’s my chance to slow down, to “be more focused,” I tell myself. Sure, I miss the creative anarchy of agency life, but I’m also comforted by the HoF’s slower pace, smaller budget, and what I assumed would be less-sophisticated expectations. 

I have just presented my marketing plan for one of the biggest exhibits in the museum’s history. It’s a beautifully complex, technically sophisticated plan. I am standing back, a little impressed with myself, ready for questions. 

“How did you calculate your cost per completed view?”

“What is the anticipated timeline for your color-correct?”

Tough queries I am more than capable of answering. 

Then, I am presented with a scenario that no amount of agency experience could have prepared me for. 

“What’s your plan if it rains?”

Sophisticated, but not too smart

I was always an enthusiastic agency worker. I loved telling people what I did and fully bought into the lore. “Agencies move fast!” “Agency life is never boring!” “You go to the brand side when you want to make more money and slow down.”

My job at the HoF relieved me of these notions. But it also taught me a lesson: agencies are ridiculous. And we need to wake up before all the good brands take their work in-house. 

I say this with love. But it’s a truth we need to grapple with. 

We know that no one watches a :30 video. So, why do we still create them? 

We know that we can’t skip lame social ads fast enough. So, why do we still put brand spots on TikTok?

And why are we struck dumb the moment someone asks a practical question like, “What if it rains?” Or worse, why is our first reaction to assume the asker doesn’t “get it?”

You know what has the biggest impact on an exhibit opening? Not some clever executional target definition. The weather. And until that moment, I had put zero thought into how it would affect my plan. 

I was the one who didn’t get it. But I was too “sophisticated” to know it. And therein lies the problem—and hopefully, a solution. 

Sophisticating ourselves to death 

Agencies are incentivized to impress brands with their complexity. If they think the problem is here, show them that the actual problem is wayyyyyyy over there—and the only way to fix it is via our proprietary software.

That sophistication breeds process. And layers. And billable hours. And it keeps building and building until we can’t see over the wall of BS we’ve created.

If we don’t get some perspective soon, we will be committing creative suicide. 

A simple solution

In 2023, I re-entered agency life determined not to fall back into the same old habits. I’d be lying if I said I fully succeeded, but I’ve had one big win. Within my current agency, we’ve created a team of “non-agency” thinkers. People not bound by billable rates or internal reviews or even job titles. They just think. And do. Until it works. 

Naturally, this team scores when paired with clients who are “brave” enough to execute ideas simply because they are awesome. But they’ve also forced us to pop bubbles, to reverse ingrained thinking, and weave real-life questions into meetings. They cannot solve all our problems, but they are an oasis of human, BS-free thinking, reminding us that complex solutions are rarely the most effective ones.

Because sometimes, the answer is just a tent.