Istanbul-ish Behaviour

While I was speaking at Brand Week Istanbul, WPP merged Wunderman/Thompson with VML. ‘A great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced’ The value built over years in the brands of Y&R, JWT, Wunderman gone in a heartbeat. And something huge was created. Over in Istanbul. No one really batted an eyelid. And then the conference, and life, moved on. 

The reason I mention this, is both the obvious inevitability of it, and the protracted time it took to actually happen. Like Hemingway said about going bankrupt… things happen gradually then suddenly. It actually sets up the perfect exemplar for how the pace of things in the west are so very, very different to corporate life east of Berlin. And it helped me make a point. 

Compared to the slow-moving megalithic mergers and consolidations that are becoming the calling cards of the legacy network agencies, the market in Istanbul feels turbo-charged. It’s growing at speed. You can keep your New York Minute. Istanbul speed beats it every time. 

Just the energy levels are so different. It’s palpable. There is a huge drive to do everything today, not tomorrow because tomorrow everything can change - a political event, a forex fluctuation, a tectonic slippage. People here don’t wait and prevaricate. They don't queue like we queue in the UK. There is a contagious urgency. The market is packed with energised brands with a real entrepreneurial fire to break conventions and change the way they’re working. They work with flexibility, speed and immediacy. They’re also expanding internationally.

I talked about the notion of “sell what you love” out there. That seemed to get traction in the storied trading post which once represented the western end of the Silk Road. Go into the Grand Bazaar and ask any trader about their product. They will talk for hours. In great detail. They love what they sell, it’s their livelihood. Ad agencies I would argue have lost their focus. They sell hours. They don’t love creativity, they love timesheets… That’s how they make money. Is it any wonder the product has got worse. The love has gone. Well.. transferred at best. In the big boardrooms in New York or London or Paris, you will hear conversations about recoverability and utilisation and billability. Never about creativity.

I got into this business because I love ideas, and the crazy people who have them. I don’t love time particularly. That’s why we sell ideas and not hours. That's one of the ways we bring the spotlight back to what matters.

It’s no wonder that Istanbul is a start up hotspot. The Turkish approach allows for strategic expertise and cutting-edge creative ideas to work seamlessly alongside passionate, energetic brands who are eager to embrace new technologies and new ways of working. Sounds idyllic, doesn't it? Well, it is. 

It's a far cry from the leviathan that is now VML. I have no idea how a multi-layered monster is going to be able to move quickly enough to keep up with the need for agility that modern marketing demands. And the opportunities opening up in hungry markets.