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People had told me more than once that in the current climate, this would be an especially bad thing, to lose a high-profile, longtime client. “Whatever it takes” are three words that were often spoken in my presence.

But what about me? Just because the agency was willing to lower its standards and subject itself to daily humiliation, putting profit before integrity, did that mean I had to as well? Good question, and one I asked myself on my way home from Manhattan every day. One answer is that I set out, as I always did, with the best intentions and goals: do great work and make the agency money, and hopefully some of it will trickle your way. When we sold the initial work, I was wary but excited. It wasn’t groundbreaking, but it was different, and fun, and potentially very good. When it became apparent that most of the originality and humor of the presented work were going to slowly be sucked out of the campaign, I protested, but I probably could have protested a bit more, or at least more convincingly. Or I could have asked off of the account. Or I could have quit, leaving behind my friends, my peers, and my nephew to clean up the mess.

But I didn’t bail, in large part because I didn’t want to let down my friends and coworkers and I had a family and a mortgage and I knew that there were not many places left out there that would pay me enough to support the lifestyle we were enjoying. Also, I’m fairly sure none of my solutions would have mattered.

I knew I was in this position as a direct result of every assignment I had ever taken, every job I had ever held, every raise I’d ever accepted, and every time I declined an offer to move to another city, to take a pay cut to work at the hot shop du jour, or to break free and open up a shop of my own. I was hardly a victim.

Somehow my once-thriving agency had become one of those agencies that had given Webb and Palmer the chills, too big, too comfortable, and not particularly innovative, and somehow I had become one of those guys who worked at one of those agencies.

A Barbaric Vision of the Future

On my final visit to the Barbarian Group, I was met in the waiting area by a woman with two black eyes wearing a black short-peaked cap. In addition to being Barbarian’s director of public relations and new business, Eva McCloskey is also a member of the Boston-based Roller Derby league the Boston Derby Dames. After telling me that Rick and Benjamin would be with me shortly McCloskey, who skates under the name “Evilicious,” explained that she injured her nose in a bout several weeks earlier but hoped to be back on skates soon.

When I told McCloskey that I’d returned to check up on the progress of several ongoing projects, but mostly to pick Webb’s brain about some of his and Barbarian’s provocative views on the future of advertising and branding, she took a deep breath as she considered the combination of a writer with a micro-recorder and her outspoken visionary partners. Keeping them in line (not insulting current clients) while discussing their views of the future would take all of her Roller Derby jamming expertise. “You know what?” she said. “I think I’ll join you.”

Back in the mini conference room I asked Webb for an update on the non-advertising projects Barbarian was working on. In short order he rattled off a handful of projects, including an installation art exhibit, a collaboration with twelve agencies for UNICEF’s 2008 Tap Project water-conservation effort, a plan to save the music industry, and the2husbands.com, an irreverent Web reality show in which two men, one of whom happens to be gay, seek the perfect wife.

“Advertising was the first mover to worry about the Internet as a revenue-generating platform,” Webb explained. “It didn’t have to work transactionally for advertisers at first, but they knew they had to be there. But there are many other industries that need help with interactive. The networks. The movie houses. Publications … periodicals are totally screwed on the Internet.