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Tidbit: Ad agencies and Intellectual Property

picture-19From this article from my delicious feed this week about the ad agency Anomaly, based in NYC, who’s attempting to profit off it’s creative juices in the downturn:

I/denti/tee is one of a handful of projects Anomaly has under way that bears little resemblance to the work done at ad agencies. The firm collaborated with Target on Eos, a shaving cream, and developed mobile commerce application ShopText. In addition to i/denti/tee, Anomaly is collaborating with Le Bernardin chef Eric Ripert to position him as an Emeril-like brand juggernaut, with a Web site (www.aveceric.com), book (On the Line) and PBS cooking show (Harvest) to launch next year. Anomaly is also at work on a “cosmetics product” slated for release in March.

“We’re not waiting for a client to call up and say they’re cutting back on spending,” said Carl Johnson, co-founder of Anomaly. “This is entirely in our control.”

The idea of agencies owning their own intellectual property has long been attractive. In practice, though, it’s remained elusive. Few shops have been able to turn their creative firepower and business-building acumen into real moneymaking ventures.

Anomaly hopes to break that mold. The shop here was founded more than three years ago on the premise it could use the base of an agency — it has clients like Converse and Coke — to fuel a second pillar of self-generated business activity.

The part in bold really struck me. Why is it that so much creativity in ad agencies doesn’t end up producing long-lasting intellectual property? Why do “non-creatives” (as the creatives would see them) end up creating the bulk of our IP?

Think of it this way: a patent is good for 20 years and can result in millions, even hundreds of millions of revenue. A good patent portfolio can bring in billions for 10-20 years. A good ad campaign lasts 6 months and rarely brings in the equivalent. This is a bit of an oversimplification, I know, but still, the thought is striking.

Any ideas why this is?

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 18th, 2008 @ 11:21 pm on the category Branding, Tidbits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Pretty interesting point of view. I guess, in the advertising industry where ad campaigns should always be "out of the box" and attractive to clients, there are so much competition.
  • Well, this is actually changing, albeit VERY slowly.

    Unions/groups (like AIGA) are encouraging agencies and designers to retain long-term rights for campaign-related material (exactly like the example of a 6-month ad campaign). The problem is, at least right now, is that so much of that work - especially in mid-size to smaller agencies - is tied to identity work, the rights for which should (maybe) be rightly tied to client (company). Photographers actually have a better time with this, since they are producing only a piece of the campaign, than agencies or designers do. That, and their copyright system is pretty well developed.

    It does make sense to maintain those long-term rights though, as you say, because it can bring in long-term revenue (roughly .2-.5% of any major ad buy).

    And where did you get the idea (data) that a 6 month buy rarely returns that equivalent? I would think that more national campaigns return at that level than 20-year patents.
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