DPR&Co Agency Principal Phil Huzzard reflects on what three decades in advertising can tell us about the future.
Advertising is forever changing, but the enduring value of agencies is not the tools – it is judgement, curiosity, craft and the ability to turn truth into influence.
I believe that surviving 33 years as a partner in advertising agencies is, in itself, a small victory.
But we’ve done more than survive. We’ve thrived as a Melbourne-based agency working with clients across Australia and around the world. And we remain on a fascinating journey that I regularly feel blessed to be part of.
To be clear, none of the agencies I’ve helped build became an Accenture Song or a Mother. But they have created – and continue to create – astonishingly good work. Work that has contributed to the success of companies, causes and charities around the world. Work that has helped build brands, shift behaviour and create social influence my partners and I are very proud of.
That drive for excellence remains integral to DPR&Co’s purpose: we exist for the thrill of making a difference through the power of ideas.
So, while the original dream of world domination remains just that, the successes we have achieved have been more fulfilling than I ever imagined – often in unexpected ways.
And they have come through wave after wave of change.
A bit of context
For those just beginning their journey in advertising, indulge me in a slightly comical comparison between then and now.
When I started my first real agency in April 1993, a simple press ad could take weeks and thousands of dollars to create, typeset, proof, traffic and prepare for publication.
Back then, you could reach 60 or 70 per cent of the national adult population by “roadblocking” Sunday evening free-to-air television with three spots on each of the three major networks. Nine ads. Two hundred and seventy seconds. Job done.
A high-end television commercial could cost a million dollars in “then” money – which would be at least three or four times that today.
And in agency-land, Fridays were a very full day – although at least half of it was spent having lunch.
It’s easy to look back through rose-coloured glasses and yearn for simpler times. But they weren’t really simpler. The standards were high. The pressure was real. Creativity was vital. Commercial judgement mattered. And success was still most likely to go to agencies that were strongly led, strategically clear and creatively ambitious.
What has changed is that advertising is now more equal, more diverse, better informed, better tooled and fabulously more productive than it was then.
And I wouldn’t go back for anything.
The four paradigm shifts that shaped my career
Over the years, the arrival of new technology has often been accompanied by either goldrush behaviour or predictions of doom.
Sometimes both.
Here are a few shifts many of my contemporaries will remember with a wry smile.
1. The Apple Mac
I remember when Markby, Conly and Huzzard bought our very first Mac II.
“Good for layouts,” said art director Rod Conley. “But it’ll never be a serious contributor to the ad business.”
Five years later, there wasn’t a typesetting trade house left in Australia.
The industry adapted and moved on.
2. Desktop publishing
The emergence of desktop publishing saw much of the more tactical brochure and collateral work agencies relied upon begin to evaporate.
For a while, that felt confronting. Revenue that had previously been protected by process, production knowledge and access to specialist suppliers was suddenly vulnerable.
But the good agencies adapted. They focused less on what the Apple Mac could do and more on what it couldn’t do.
It couldn’t find the truth in a brand. It couldn’t shape strategy. It couldn’t sell an idea to a boardroom. It couldn’t understand a customer’s irrational motivations. It couldn’t create a campaign that moved people.
So the industry evolved and moved on.
3. The dot-com boom
The dot-com boom was a similarly crazy time.
For a period, parts of our industry were complicit in one of the great marketing heists of all time, as the emerging digital media ecosystem created its own set of voodoo metrics and margin formulae.
Millions were poured into attracting “eyeballs”. Excuses were made for results that would have been laughed out of the room in the analogue world. Activity was too often mistaken for impact. Measurement was sometimes used to obscure performance rather than reveal it.
Eventually, marketers woke up. The industry grew up. The more useful parts of digital endured. The nonsense was gradually exposed.
And again, we moved on.
4. Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is tougher to judge because we do not yet have the luxury of hindsight.
It’s true that AI has been contributing to productivity for more than a decade, particularly in research, analytics and media. But the arrival of generative AI has created the most visible and seismic shift in how we work.
We are already absorbing and assimilating the extraordinary opportunities AI offers. In time, as with all the other “once in a generation” changes, we will probably wonder how we ever worked without it.
And we will move on.
My only reservation is that the speed of change enabled by AI feels unlike anything that has come before it. As my partner Richard Ralphsmith has said in a couple of his television appearances, we may find ourselves grieving for parts of the craft that made advertising so inspiring and so much fun.
Then again, last week I watched our venerable Head of Art, Frankie Ey, wield AI to stunning effect for a new defence-related client – completely at one with an application that simply did not exist a year ago.
That, I think, is the tension we now live with.
AI may change many of the tasks. It may compress timelines, reduce production friction and make certain technical skills less scarce. But it will not remove the need for taste, judgement, empathy, strategy, persuasion or courage.
And it certainly won’t remove the need for ideas.
What I would say to younger people in the industry
If there is any wisdom I could possibly impart from three decades in advertising, it is this.
Maintain your curiosity.
Invest in yourself.
Stay plastic rather than wooden.
Be interested in the world beyond advertising, because that is where the best advertising ideas usually come from. Read widely. Listen carefully. Learn from clients. Learn from customers. Learn from people who make you uncomfortable. And don’t confuse familiarity with understanding.
The tools will keep changing. The business models will keep shifting. The language will keep evolving. Every few years, someone will announce that advertising as we know it is dead.
It won’t be.
But parts of it will die. And new parts will emerge.
The people and agencies that thrive will be those that can adapt without losing sight of what we are fundamentally here to do: help our clients tell their truth with clarity, passion and joy.
With the help of AI, of course.
But not in service of AI.
In service of ideas that make a difference.