Adam Werbach in Person (kinda)

Wednesday in class we got to meet face to video screen with Adam Werbach.  Here's a couple of takeaways I got from our interaction:

• Like record companies and purveyors of gas-guzzling SUVs (Ahem..GM), The old advertising industry is dying a rapid death. Due to the availability of information and the ability to broadcast your opinions to the world, people are calling bullshit on advertising to the point where it is affecting sales. People just don't want to be "sold" to anymore. Sustainability has the potential to save the advertising industry by making agencies the purveyors of change, not pushers of products.
• "The best tool you have is knowing nothing" Werbach emphasized having an opoen mind and that the new generation of advertsing (us) have an advantage because we are not stuck doing things "the old way." We can be mentally and creativly flexible. These are essentails if you want to push change.
• "Greenwashing is bad marketing" and is also dying a rapid death for most of the same reasons that the old ways of advertising are dyding. You just cant trick people anymore.
• Sustainability starts within a business long before they should communicate about it. The time to communicate about a companies sustainability is at the "point of no return." This is when a company has integrated sustainability deeply in their business and have made capital investments which guarntee they follow through. The "point of no return" is a different time for every compnay.
• While Werbach said there are a few industries that are "inherently evil" namely, oil, tobacco, and bottled water companies, the majority of currently unsustainable businesses can benefit from adopting sustainable practices. Yes, even companies like Wal-Mart and McDonalds. 
• Regarding sustainable practices, companies are not asking the question, "should we do this?" but "how do we do this?" This is a big shift from just a few years back.
• Despite is flaws, our current industrial/economic model has done much to bring about social/economic justice and well-being to large numbers of people. This model needs to be "re-energized" with sustainability (social, economic, environmental, and cultural) guiding it, if it is going to continue being successful.

One thing that I've been thinking about a lot lately is how the relationship between ad agency and client is changing. Talking to Werbach helped me realize that agencies need to work very closely with their clients in order for them to promote their sustainable practices.

So closely that maybe the agency model needs to be changed. I think that in the years to come we will see that internal client-side advertising/sustainability initiatives will take off as opposed to ad agency-based external ones. It seems that Saatchi S, Enviromedia, etc. are now occupying a niche in the agency world that is going to soon go mainstream and may even disappear. Just a thought, but I am interested in seeing where things are going to go!

Thank you Adam Werbach for the inspiration and insight!