PILLAR: Built on an old idea
A column out of Arlington, Virginia, profiled PILLAR's founder, Eddie Kaufholz, this week. The piece walks through the move to Arlington, his family, the school system, the years of consulting that turned into something larger. It traces a personal story. But somewhere in the middle, the thesis the company is actually built on comes through clearly, in language we have been sharpening for some time.
The thesis is old. The piece calls it "an idea that has always been possible but rarely practiced: that an agency should be structured to serve the work itself."
That sentence carries a lot of weight. It is what every other choice at PILLAR follows from.
The agency model most clients have lived through is the opposite. Eddie put it this way in the piece: "The agency model has gotten really bloated. Layers, handoffs, middle management. The senior people who pitch the work often disappear once it starts." That last clause is the one most people nod at when they hear it. The senior creative who walked in for the pitch was never going to be the one writing the messaging. Everyone has lived this.
PILLAR was built to do the obvious thing instead. Senior people stay on the work. Teams are assembled around what the work actually calls for. Nothing more, nothing less. "The senior strategist on your kick-off call is the senior strategist writing your messaging," Eddie told the piece. "Every person on a project is there because the work specifically calls for them."
That is the whole model. Good, honest work. Senior people doing it. Efficiency passed back to the client instead of absorbed as agency margin.
It is not a new idea. It is an old one that the industry stopped practicing.
The full piece is at arlnow.com.
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