How do you capture the plight of small agencies? In a sea shanty, naturally. 

To open day two of Ad Age’s Small Agency Conference, our annual event geared toward celebrating and supporting the tiny but might indie shops with teams of 150 or fewer, our Executive Editor Judy Pollack tapped professional musician David Coffin to capture the story of small agencies in the form of a seafarer song.

To create the tune, Pollack provided Coffin some of the industry’s biggest buzzwords and pain points, which he then integrated into his verse, set to the classic sailor tune “Blow the Man Down.”

​​”I think he did a great job of capturing what makes small agencies strong—their independence, their creativity and their purpose,” Pollack says. (See the full lyrics below.)

 

The pandemic is over and we’re standing tall
To me way hey, we will prevail!
The scope of our work we do not low ball
Our purpose is clear, we’re too strong to fail.
Whoever said, “Size matters,” they had it right
To me way hey, we will prevail!

The smaller the shop, the brighter the light
Our purpose is clear, we’re too strong to fail.
Take your BBDO, WPP, DDB,
To me way hey, we will prevail!

Takes more than acronyms for a shop to succeed
Our purpose is clear, we’re too strong to fail.
We Zoomed our reviews but they won’t make us rich
To me weigh hey, we will prevail.
We need just two floors for our elevator pitch
Our purpose is clear, we’re too strong to fail.

With contactless payment and pickup curbside
To me weigh hey, we will prevail.
We’ll transform your business and do it with pride
Our purpose is clear, we’re too strong to fail.

With our creative minds there are no bounds,
To weigh hey, we will prevail.
When you sing a sea shantey, the heads turn around
Our purpose is clear, we’re too strong to fail.

Coffin’s tune teed up the conference’s keynote presentation from Cartwright founder Keith Cartwright, titled “Lie, Cheat, Steal and Give it All Away.”

It so happens the sea shanty opener had taken a page from Cartwright’s book, says Pollack. She stole the idea from (formerly) small agency Mother, which had submitted an entry to Ad Age’s A-List Awards in the form of a shanty. That idea, however, wasn’t original either, as it jumped off the viral TikTok viral craze that began at the end of 2020, thanks to a mail carrier in the U.K., Nathan Evans.

The Small Agency Conference continues Wednesday morning, with more presentations on how to set up your shop for success, diversity, how to be an ally and more. Also, Ad Age will reveal the big (small) winners at the Small Agency Awards presentation at 5PM ET.

It’s not too late to get tickets here for access to the Awards, presentations to come and to stream Monday and Tuesday’s panels and talks.