Natural selection is a bitch.

It rolls on relentlessly, doesn’t it? Unaware of its own cliché, responding relentlessly to changes in the environment and competition between species. And then, as ever, only the best adapted survive.

But hang on, ten years of digital, attitudinal and behavioural development just happened in ten months. And we can see some serious selection happening out there in what used to be called ‘adland’ but should perhaps be more accurately referred to as ‘the creative start-up ecosystem’. Dinosaurs and mammals baby. The mood’s got a bit more serious.

There’s a certain desperation to the consolidation happening at the big networks right now. And they are just the canary in the cage. More obvious, but irreversible change is coming for all. Look at history. Look at other vertically integrated, mass production industries that have had to change their game after major shifts in consumer behaviour. Look at Hollywood. Within the space of 10 years, it all changed. The shape shifted from seven dominant studios to hundreds of thousands of freelancers. Shifts in media consumption and distribution, led to different customer needs. The distribution shift meant that the in-house talent couldn't cope, and to service that new need, the independents emerged.

Technology has changed the game for good

It’s still the same. The independents coalesce around a project and deliver amazing creativity, then disperse only to reassemble in a different shape around the next project. Like a glorious murmuration of starlings. That is our future. The writing has been on the wall for years. The rise of the independent creative, and strategist, with different tribes, alliances and allegiances is happening here and now. This is no place for legacy shops.

And into this environmental change came the pandemic. Vaccine or not, the virus has accelerated the growth of a growing global community of the very best creative and strategic talent, that has already made the decision to leave traditional agency life.

Those for whom the Kool-Aid has curdled. All ages, all genders, all over the world don’t understand why they need to work all hours god sends and have zero work/life balance when there is an alternative. There is an exodus to the portfolio career. Some have private clients, some work with a number of agencies, some work directly with brands, some are entrepreneurs, some have personal projects. They flourish.

But for them, it’s not about working from home, it’s about working from anywhere. And there’s a massive difference. On the whole, they haven’t been forced to work from the kitchen table by a global pandemic, they made the explicit choice to jump off the burning platform and find sanctuary. You can find them in the north of Scotland, the west coast of France, a beach in Indonesia, Crouch End, Goa, Wherever. Technology allows the creative diaspora to go wherever it damn well wants to, in a way that couldn’t happen just five years ago. Technology has changed the game for good.

The talent is the focus

That’s why The Liberty Guild exists. The same technology revolution that has enabled distributed working on a global scale, has driven wholesale fundamental disruption in all major businesses and their marketing departments. And whilst we all know that the work we make has changed, how we make it has not changed since the 1950’s. It was inevitable someone would be the first to apply global platform thinking to the creative end of the food chain. And that was us.

We’re a Guild. That’s important. An invitation-only association of the finest independent communication practitioners in the world. Every member is either an international award winner, or outstanding in emerging fields. Firmly at the top of the funnel, that talent helps us deliver the strategic and creative solutions on an ‘on demand’ basis. The Liberty Guild is a talent-centric scalable, global alternative to the standard advertising agency model.

One thing remains a constant however in this melée, and that is the power of great creative ideas to transform brands. It’s what brands want. And what we can give. Without the layers of account and project management that agencies wrap around it. And even though we’ve platformed structure and process, it’s the talent we focus on. So, we work in a way that enables the talent to cultivate their passions, their side gigs and their plural lives. Bringing balance. Because when they flourish, we all flourish, and our collective creativity can be transformative.

So, as the Dinosaurs start to feel the heat, the new breed emerges blinking into the sunlight. Different shapes and sizes, some will flourish, some will not. But changing client needs and changing talent needs are not fulfilled properly in the current agency ecosystem. And we know how nature abhors a vacuum. Be prepared for genuinely different, disruptive sorts of businesses who are better adapted to work in this post-COVID world. Natural selection. Just keeps on rolling.