Of partners, vendors, and pirates

A post over at Ad Age sounds the familiar refrain: agencies want to be long-term partners with their clients, not just vendors who can be tossed aside easily:

Are You a Partner or a Vendor?

It's a great idea, but one of the biggest barriers sits in most agencies's creative department.

Creative types love to be iconoclastic and independent. They subscribe to Jay Chiat's idea that they should be "pirates, not the navy." That impulse is antithetical partnering with a client. A marketer building a brand or growing market share wants to work with a disciplined naval squadron not an undependable, easily bored bunch of ragtag buccaneers.