I’ve been travelling for the first two weeks of the year, as indeed I was in the final two weeks of 2009. It is nice to finally come to rest and stand still for a second and reflect on the last 10 years. It seems to have passed so quickly since I was stood, not far from where I am right now, on the banks of the River Thames on 31^st December 1999 wondering what life would be like on the other side of the millennium’s passing. Not only has that moment now passed but many others in between then and now and ten years on its interesting to think what has happened. More importantly perhaps its interesting (if not imperative) to think of what has not happened, that should have happened. Fireworks aside. 

Many others far more qualified than me will make a good account of the crippling third world debt, restricted access to food, water, shelter and the world’s resources locked behind fences and military lines. We haven’t made much progress on the individual’s socio-economic progress have we? Even access to basic healthcare in the world’s wealthiest country has become an exercise in long political (and selfish?) debate rather than action and response. Again and again the destination is clear, visible and simple but the journey to get there turns into the wacky races.

We have certainly spent the last ten years reveling in our wealth (and why not) but we’ve also perhaps been overly protectionist and suspicious, making the rather simple overly complex in an effort to protect what we have and justify our roles, our value and thus our wealth. Think about the financial crisis, a culture of competition and success that caused trusted individuals (they’re bankers after all) to stray off the path and take risks beyond an established test of reasonable behaviour. Things got so complex even the smartest regulators couldn’t keep up with the development of new financial products and instruments. What amazing innovation! For all their myriad faults, the banking business should be applauded a small amount for not least demonstrating how making people so greedy for money that they will clearly devote themselves to nothing else but making that money whatever the negative effects and in turn become such efficient innovators in the industry. That time has come to an end. We don’t need the finance business to be innovating faster than they can be regulated, not unless they are creating wealth for all. In fact they’ve done the exact opposite – I don’t expect many laid-off manufacturing workers would be standing up right now applauding the City’s spirit of successful innovation.

Turning to the business at hand, media, brands and communications, what can we expect and what should we aspire to in the next ten years.

First off we’ve got to stop sitting around reminding ourselves what we have to do to be better, we need to get on now and do it. This will be the year of change, the change we’ve all been talking about for years (integration, collaboration etc) – economic need will be forcing agencies and clients into new ways of working together. The traditional media and creative agencies will have the further to go, the smarter ones are very much re-thinking their core offering and how to charge for it in the new order of communications.

Secondly, we might stop thinking about communications as a solution to a problem (the old adage of the hammer and the nail) and see its deeper value to consumers, really believing that marketing can be a service. And of service.

Next, now that we have all finally succeeded in putting the consumer (rather than the brand) at the heart of our planning processes, we need to start to broaden from being ‘consumer centric’ to ‘community centric’. Most people these days want to be reassured that as a brand you are not only concerned with their welfare but that you are delivering value to their community and indeed the world at large. This may be in the form of a simple, meaningful story (a philosophy or a movement perhaps) and also in the form of tools and services that help us all to be better, more responsible people in this new dawn.

There’s bound to be many good ideas floating around this year, it feels like (maybe, just maybe) the years of protectionism and reluctance to share ideas that would innovate us all (which I blogged about before here) may be over. The various festivals this year will be fascinating as a good litmus of how far we have come in the last 12 months and what lessons we have really learned.

Finally, I did make a bold call last year that 2009 would be the year of the pitch, with clients looking for (mainly) cost saving commitments from media agencies in particular. This seems to have been borne out, although the total number of pitches was down and some heavy weight account shifts took place, many driven by cost efficiency and rightly so. Well, I declare that 2010 will be the year of the pitch again (hooray!), this time with different motivations.

This year will see brands challenging their agencies on their business models, making new demands of innovation and detailing new needs from their resource. Pressure from these clients will change the shape of agencies this year more than any other year since the internet arrived. Expect to see a series of big pitches taking place (mostly medium sized budgets) across the regions this year with new types of briefs on the table – arguably Sony Europe kicked off this trend already dropping Fallon in favour of Anomaly. A fascinating time to be in the business. If you’re not one who relishes a challenge or thinks that change belongs in your trouser pocket, time to find a new path to tread…

Hold onto your hats, 2010 is going to be a bumpy but exhilarating ride.