Welcome to Year Zero

Covid-19 is history. It took sacrifices and hard work, but eventually humans won. The world as we know it is not the same as before. Not even the ad industry which saw its last major revolutionary change roughly 50 years ago when Bernbach brought art directors and copywriters together. 

Time working from home destroyed the old industrial mindset of grinding from 9 to 5. There are other options too. Everything has become more flexible. Hours don’t matter - results and productivity do. 10 hours on Monday, 7 hours on another day and only 3 hours on Friday. 

More and more agencies have widened their offering towards service design and product and technology innovations. New Business people realise that CMO’s are not the only ones to target. 

What quarantine times truly taught the business world was that there was way too much self-made hurry and urgency. The world will not end if the ad assets delay from 2am to 2pm. Clients don’t set inhuman deadlines anymore, and if they do, agencies now have the guts to tell them that they can’t deliver world-class creative if there is not enough time to do so. 

Last but not least, meaningfulness is here to stay. 

All the decisions are now based on their impact on the environment and society. Revenue comes second. Polluting industries are shifting towards better solutions and agencies are helping them in the change process by using their superpower - creativity. 

For decades, we pushed the living ecosystem too far, but Coronavirus gave us a break between rounds. A break that made us realise we simply couldn't continue as we used to or mankind would have faced K.O. A lot of work is still to be done, but we are finally on the right path towards a more sustainable and equal world. 

Let us not go back to normal. Let us start from year zero.