DEATH TO A BUNCH OF OTHER PEOPLE.

The KesselsKramer company version of a nip/tuck extended to other functions within the traditional agency set-up.

More bits of fat for the plastic surgeon’s suction pump included:

TRAFFIC.

Large agencies require someone to manage workflow – assigning briefs to particular teams, as well as overseeing the progress of those teams.

KesselsKramer has a staff of roughly thirty-five people, so the notion of a Traffic Department seemed a little grand.

In fact, it could easily be replaced by the Walking Up To Someone And Asking Them What They’re Doing Department. Anyone could join this department, as it required only the ability to saunter over to your colleagues and update them on whatever needed updating.

ART BUYERS.

An art buyer’s function hovers somewhere between art director and producer.

Art buyers know the latest illustrators, photographers, models, finger painters – whichever outside parties are required to take a concept through to a fully realized campaign. They book said parties and recommend said parties to creatives.

Again, KesselsKramer’s scale meant that art buyers were less than essential. Instead, KesselsKramer creatives are asked to look for their own inspiring collaborators, sometimes also booking and managing their chosen photographer/ illustrator/origami expert. The money side of this usually falls into a producer’s remit.

In essence, these alterations boil down to making the making of advertising better by making it less.

You might also say that this is obvious: cut overheads and make life easier. So what?

Well, yes, good point: so what indeed.

But however many times these ideas are raised, agencies, like most companies, remain full of not-very-inspired folk doing semiuseful semi-jobs.

So while there’s a degree of plain, smack-you-between-the-eyes common sense to all this, it’s also an attitude that’s worth repeating and worth discussing.