11947: Sorrell’s Spotty Trendspotting.

WPP Overlord Sir Martin Sorrell published a perspective titled, “The 10 Trends Shaping the Global Ad Business” via LinkedIn—which immediately begs the question why Sir Marty is on the social site with nearly 108,500 followers. That’s a lot of WPP sycophants. Regardless, one must also wonder if the amazing JWT Trendspotting Crew helped their boss type the piece. Of particular disinterest is the following excerpt:

2. Supply exceeds demand—except in talent

Despite the events that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008, manufacturing production still generally outstrips consumer demand. This is good news for marketing companies, because manufacturers need to invest in branding in order to differentiate their products from the competition.

Meanwhile, the war for talent, particularly in traditional Western companies, has only just begun. The squeeze is coming from two directions: declining birth rates and smaller family sizes; and the relentless rise of the web and associated digital technologies.

Simply, there will be fewer entrants to the jobs market and, when they do enter it, young people expect to work for tech-focused, more networked, less bureaucratic companies. It is hard now; it will be harder in 20 years.

To his credit, Sir Marty has previously covered the topics of talent recruitment and development in the industry, albeit mostly admitting his own companies do a lousy job in the areas. Hell, he recently lost JWT Director of Trendspotting Ann Mack to Facebook, underscoring his point about folks’ desire “to work for tech-focused, more networked, less bureaucratic companies.” Yet like the pap annually excreted by the JWT Trendspotters, Sir Marty’s pseudo thought leader puffery lacks any true vision or action plans to address the issues. Indeed, the man appears oblivious to the fact that he’s directly responsible for the trends, given his continuing success at erecting tech-fucked-up, poorly networked, brontosaur-like bureaucracies.