The Manhattan Mystique Vs. The Cheap Revolution

For 19 years I've kept my communications boutique in the Manhattan Metro area because that was, at least at the time, necessary.  The business probably wouldn't have thrived w/o a Manhattan cachet.  Yeah, in that continuum we call communications, ranging from advertising to presentation coaching, creativity and superior quality were thought to be grown solely in Manhattan.  Mystique is the name for that kind of assumption.  And, that mystique worked well for a long long time.

But that may be changing. 

Yesterday, a prospect flew me down to Florida to try out if what his organization needed and what my organization had to offer were a fit.  A pretty good reader of trends I had been sensing since the recession of 2000 maybe vendors from Manhattan had to provide more in their usual pitch (sometimes just smoke and mirrors) than simply being a high-profile player in the Manhattan creative scene.  So, I knew not to play that card.  Good thing.  The prospect met me for breakfast today w/o a hint of deference.  No, I was not the guru from New York coming to impart insight to the non-New York yahoos.  After some southern hospitality he made me sing for my breakfast and lunch and dinner. 

Instead of a PowerPoint presentation (delivered top-down), I sat in the middle of his staff and we knocked around ideas.  Even if I wanted to use those old Manhattan power tricks of making the prospect feel uncomfortable, incompetent, and rather pathetic, there was no opportunity.  There was too much real work to do.  The sole dynamic was the push  and pull to uncover what wasn't working in their online communications, come up with recommendations for fixes and then right-on-the-spot execute them.  Also forget that 19-page proposal crap in the pricey binder.  Like I said, I had to sing for my breakfast, lunch and supper.

The money we're talking is not Manhattan-type funny money.  But, I wonder and so do they in Florida how long the Manhattan vendors can charge those kinds of fees, especially outside Manhattan?  Clearly there is the "Cheap Revolution" sweeping throughout all disciplines.  The folks in Florida probably knew this was so before I did.

Now that I got to thinking about it, the Cheap Revolution has hit and hit hard the medical profession (few MDs encourage their children to follow in their footsteps).  With DuPont experimenting with outsourcing legal tasks to Asia, it could eventually hit law, including the elite firms.  In academia, think the Cheap Revolution in terms of adjunct instructors w/o benefits and long-term contracts.  In software, think Open Source.

Will the Cheap Revolution come to Manhattan, the supposed media capital? I probably won't be around to see that or experience it.  Hopefully, in the next 24 months I can work out an exit strategy and settle somewhere, anywhere else.  I hate Manhattan.  It's easier to just do the work than to have to have down cold the tough job of putting together just-the-right the smoke and mirrors.

Comments

[Micki]

Praise be! YOU get it. Please educate the large Manhattan based ad agencies now. Too tall an order for one woman - I know, but a girl can hope.