learning to walk

One year ago today the entire advertising industry piled into a car for a New Year's Eve celebration. We were all eager to drink away our anxieties. The economy fell apart in September and the repercussion were hitting home. 

December 31st 2008 was a dark foggy night. Not paying enough attention to where we were heading, we found ourselves in unfamiliar terrain. It didn't help we were a little drunk. Now we were a little lost. 

As we sped around the curves barely maintaing control of the wheel, we inadvertently crossed the center median. Just then, a semi was coming in the other direction and...BANG! Our car spun out of control, smashing into the side rail and careening down the side of a mountain. The sudden fear of bracing ourself for the impending impact is the last thing we remembered. The world went black.

We woke up in an emergency room surrounded by doctors and nurses. It didn't look good. We could hear the faint murmurings of the medical staff. We would survive but the damage was as of yet unknown. 

The next thing we recalled was regaining consciousness in our hospital room. Peripherally we could see the nurse franticly paging the doctor. He rushed through the door. Hovering over us he waved a pen light across and into our eyes. We could see he was relieved. 

"Welcome back". He took out a tongue depressor from his top pocket and ran it across the arch of our foot. "Can you feel this?" 

"Nope"

"What about this?"

"Nothing."

"Ok. I'll be back". The doctor made some notes as he made his way toward the door.

"Are we paralyzed?

He turned toward us assuredly. "For the moment...but I think it's only temporary. Let's wait and see. You've got the best care around. There are a lot of very smart and motivated people here to help you."

This was how we spent the 1st quarter of 2009. We laid in the bed as an industry frozen with paralysis. There was no movement. We were told our parts were beginning to heal but no one knew how long it would take. Every day physical therapists moved our limbs to get some blood flowing to prevent complete atrophied although it was clear we had shed a lot of weight and lost a substantial amount of muscle. 

Some time around the end of March, we awoke in the morning with a sensation in one of our toes. We started to wiggle them. The doctor was cautiously optimistic. It was a sign of recovery but it was a long road back. 

"Doc, will we ever walk again?"

"WIth combination of your will and new technologies I believe you will. But, to be honest, it will never be as it was. Hopefully not bad. Just different." 

We were okay with that. At least we were alive. There was movement. Like the paralysis itself, the long winter thawed into spring. Slowly, we started to regain feeling throughout our entire body. By the time summer rolled around we were feeding ourselves without help from a tube or nurses. There were even moments we started to emotionally feel like our old self but the surroundings were a constant reminder of the devastating crash. 

By the fall we were back in our own home fending for ourselves. Progress continued. Little by little we were achieving our new normal. By the end of the year, we had recovered a great deal from our wounds. The scars remained and we continued to walk with a pronounced limp. We were far from being fully healed. At least we were moving forward under our own power.

This is the metaphor for 2009. The crash and it's aftermath. What about 2010?

Thanks to a four quarter flurry of clients needing to spend year end budgets and must see live events such as the Super Bowl, Winter Olympics and the Oscars we could lull ourselves into thinking things were recovering nicely. It is a far cry from the paralysis of Q1 2009 but we are hardly whole again. The means of distributing content, the viewing habits of consumer, the power of social media, and the commoditization of ideas have changed our industry forever. 

The promise of the new decade presents huge marketing demands to reach a fractured audience, an audience that ironically is more accessible than ever but even harder to reach. As an industry concepting, communicating, and executing ideas is our expertise. We must translate that expertise into the language of the next generation along with the skills to consistently congregate and mobilize a captive audience for the new media landscape. 

So the metaphor for 2010, as we lick our wounds from what for many of us was the hardest year of our business life, is to learn to walk again. So many possibilities lie ahead. Let's just know where we are going and keep our eyes on the road. 

Hope everyone has a very Happy New Year!