We Want to be Shannon Brown’s Agency

The Inter­net is abuzz with dec­la­ra­tions of the slam-dunk contest’s death. On Twit­ter alone, the post “RIP, Dunk Con­test 1984–2010” from ESPN’s @sportsguy33 has been re-tweeted thou­sands of times. And “Dunk” is cur­rently a trend­ing topic, with the major­ity of com­ments being pejo­ra­tive in nature. So what went wrong in Dal­las last night? And, more impor­tantly, what can be done to fix it?

Like many fans, I believe that the rules of the com­pe­ti­tion need to be changed. The num­ber of par­tic­i­pants, the num­ber of dunks per round, the num­ber of attempts per round (remem­ber Chris “Bird­man” Anderson’s mul­ti­ple misses in 2005?) are all areas for improve­ment. But even sig­nif­i­cant changes to the rules will not fix the under­ly­ing problem.

While I tend to scoff at sports metaphors, I find it dif­fi­cult to ignore the sim­i­lar­i­ties between the slam-dunk con­test and the adver­tis­ing indus­try. Lately, the inces­sant debate about the “agency of the future” has moved past “Tra­di­tional shops vs. Dig­i­tal shops” (how did it take so long to accept that dig­i­tal is a manda­tory?) to “Thinkers vs. Doers.” This is a mean­ing­ful shift in dis­course because, unlike the “Traditional/Digital” debate, the “Thinker/Doer” dis­cus­sion acknowl­edges that there is a future for both. Instead of argu­ing which side will face extinc­tion, the debate is focused on which side will assume lead­er­ship. In short, there is gen­eral accep­tance that a bril­liant idea is use­less if it can’t be exe­cuted, and that stel­lar exe­cu­tion of a lack­lus­ter idea is equally worthless.

That brings me back to last night’s anti-climactic dunk con­test. When the com­pe­ti­tion is at its best, it includes ath­letes who are as wildly cre­ative at they are phys­i­cally gifted. Last night we saw some amaz­ing ath­letes who sim­ply lacked the imag­i­na­tion to show­case their aer­ial acrobatics.

Dr. J tak­ing off from the foul line: that was a great con­cept well exe­cuted. Dee Brown cov­er­ing his eyes mid-air: that was a great con­cept well exe­cuted. Vince Carter plac­ing his entire fore­arm through the rim, Ger­ald Green blow­ing out a can­dle on a cup­cake he placed on the rim, Dwight Howard plac­ing a sticker on the back­board as he dunked, Nate Robin­son dunk­ing over Spud Webb: all great con­cepts well exe­cuted. Last night, how­ever, we saw what hap­pens when cre­ativ­ity is removed from the process.

So here’s my pro­posal to Shan­non Brown.

Keep LetShannonDunk.com alive. Get your­self into the con­test next year. And let HIGH WIDE & HANDSOME be your agency. That’s right: we want to develop the con­cepts for your tri­umphant return the slam-dunk con­test in 2011.

Now, this isn’t just some PR stunt. We’re not giv­ing away our ser­vices for free. Con­sid­er­ing that the other inces­sant debate within the adver­tis­ing indus­try is about com­pen­sa­tion mod­els, and that we believe agen­cies tend to under­value their ser­vices, we expect to be com­pen­sated. That said, we’re very com­fort­able with performance-based com­pen­sa­tion. We only get paid if you win.

So what do you say, Shan­non? Our office is only 15 min­utes from Sta­ples Cen­ter. We’re avail­able to meet when­ever and wher­ever it’s con­ve­nient for you. Send us an email at info@WeAreHWH.com or give us a call: 310.751.6931. If noth­ing else, you’d be the first dunker to have his own team of strate­gists, writ­ers and art direc­tors. And Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith can’t say, “We’ve seen that before.”

Shan­non Brown, we want to be your agency.