An opinion piece by Ken Robertson, founder and CEO, The Tenth Man
I’ve been trying very hard to keep my mouth shut about the National Lottery’s latest advertising campaign. Seems like I’ve failed. Bernice Harrison’s piece in The Irish Times crystallises what many in our industry have been grumbling about. Not because the ad is bad. Not because the execution is poor. But because of what the decision says about where our industry is heading.
Brands hire creative agencies for one reason: ideas. Not production. Not process. Not project management. Ideas. So when a client asks an agency to recreate a campaign from another market rather than create something original, we’ve crossed a line. And when an agency agrees to do it, we’ve crossed another.
Photocopy
At some point, somebody has to say: “No. We can do better than that.” Because if we’re simply localising work that’s already been created elsewhere, what exactly are clients paying creative agencies for? The worst part is the message it sends to the people tasked with making the work. Imagine being told your job isn’t to create the future. It’s to photocopy it.
Good luck motivating and retaining top tier talent with that.
And this comes at a particularly grim moment for the creative industry.
AI is commoditising execution. KesselsKramer, one of the world’s most respected independent agencies, which created campaigns for Aer Lingus (above), closed its doors last week. Creative agencies are fighting for relevance, differentiation and value like never before. Yet here we have one of Ireland’s biggest advertisers effectively signalling that original thinking is optional. Which would be worrying in any category. But it’s especially worrying in this one.
The National Lottery is under pressure. Bauer Media’s ‘Cash Machine’ has completely redefined what casual gambling looks like. It’s captured public imagination, generated conversation and created a mechanic that people actively talk about.
The Lottery isn’t just competing for wallet share anymore. It’s competing for attention. And attention has never been won by copying yesterday’s ideas.
Part of the reason I started The Tenth Man was because I was becoming increasingly frustrated by agencies that felt built for a world that no longer existed. The future belongs to agencies that challenge convention, defend originality and have the courage to tell clients what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.
One final question.
Where is IAPI in all of this?
If the representative body of Ireland’s advertising industry won’t stand up for the value of original creative thinking, who will? Because if we normalise copying ideas, celebrate localisation over originality and reduce agencies to production houses, we shouldn’t be surprised when clients start asking why they need agencies at all.
And that’s a far bigger threat to this industry than AI.
