Similarly, it would be foolhardy for brands and creative agencies to think the originators of killer marketing ideas won’t want to receive money based on the success of their original ideas. If we take what is happening in the art world and apply it to creativity more broadly, we can envision future scenarios that could completely upend not only design, media, architecture, education, tech and hospitality companies (“creative companies”) but also marketing and creative agencies.
There are seven ways that Web3 could upend the future viability of creative agencies:
Ownership of IP will shift from clients to creators
Agencies have typically hired staff as work-for-hire and paid out salaries in exchange for either the agency or its client having sole ownership of the IP that individual produces. However, future workers will insist on maintaining at least partial ownership of their work. A brand film that lives on social could be minted as an NFT that pays out a “licensing fee” (leveraging a smart contract on the blockchain) to the team that made the film for every time it is placed as an ad unit or shared through social networks.
New compensation models will redistribute wealth
Creators will look for compensation that is a mix of ownership over their own IP and social tokens or digital currency for their contribution to a given project. This mix of “shares” and “cash” is normally afforded only to the most senior of executives but would now distribute wealth in the form of new asset classes to a wider swath of people across the socioeconomic spectrum.
Unique expertise will continue to be highly valued, but these skills would likely come in the form of deep certifications in those skills instead of from four-year university degrees. Centralized recruiting functions that formerly relied on the pre-screen of Ivy League admissions committees would be replaced by project-based collective decision making, likely supported by artificial intelligence that is trained to root out bias.
Great ideas will reap proportional financial gains
Since the blockchain can track the movement of virtual assets, ideas that spread more broadly could return financial rewards directly to the originators of an idea. Creators would no longer need to steadily work their way up the corporate ladder to earn higher salaries. They would be compensated in direct proportion to the consumer engagement generated and the market value of their idea.
Creators will participate fluidly across many projects
Creatives will feel less beholden to a single agency and will instead seek out individual projects that would value their unique skill sets and knowledge. They will offer their skills in exchange for social tokens from that project’s community. This will spur a feeling of personal investment in the project because their contribution will have the potential to increase the perceived value of that community’s social token. They would likely return to communities where they have already provided value time and time again as they would reap potential financial rewards as their contribution continues to add value to that community’s token. Since holding tokens often opens access to new experiences, the younger generation in particular, which often values experiences over things, will be highly motivated to earn and retain social tokens.
Creators will work for brands and projects that reflect their values
Creators will work only on projects or with brands whose ambitions align with their higher-order values—a trend already emerging in younger generations. More fluid participation across a multitude of projects will allow workers to be more selective in terms of what projects they choose, sticking only with the projects and brands in which they believe.
Creators will feel more empowered
Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAO) have the potential to create more flat organizations with more democratic governance structures. Decision-making would be determined by the collective rather than by senior executives. Workers will be more invested in these DAOs than in today’s agencies because they will have greater say in how the organization functions; their voices will be heard. In addition, the emergence of more user-friendly creator tools makes Web3 environments more approachable to a broader group of creators. For example, there is an entire community of high school students who are dexterous at building Roblox experiences that could be valuable to agencies and brands either now or in the near future.
We will see greater innovation in creative ideas
With this increase in autonomy, projects will attract a diverse array of thinkers to contribute. If we can overcome the educational hurdles of onboarding creators into this new reality, we will see a greater diversity of people getting involved, setting up projects and building creative-based communities around their passions. This clashing and collaboration of lived experiences and skills will result in significant innovation.
Web3 has the potential to democratize the business of creativity, forcing creative companies to rethink how they are structured and how they reward their employees for their original thinking. Creatives likely will be empowered to work with and for whom they want and reap rewards once unfairly outside of their grasp. This incredible shift has the power to usher in a long-awaited new age of creativity to which agencies and brands will need to adapt.
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