Advance of the Management Consultancies

For many years agencies both creative and media have debated the impact that the management consultancies might have on their business amp160Their conclusion amp160Nothing to see here thereamp8217s no problem in fact just the opposite as we build on our communication skills to move smoothly upstream onto the ground occupied by the consultanciesHow wrong they were amp160Five management missteps and their consequences have opened the doorFirst management consultancies started many years ago to mop up the cream of the new talent emerging from universities amp160It seems an age since the old fullservice agencies had their pick of the graduate crop amp160Today management consultancies pay more and could be said to offer a more developed flexible futureYes advertising and media may be more fun and have never been more challenging but even those charged with recruitment donamp8217t sound all that convinced that amp8220funamp8221 is much of a hookSecond despite having an age to do so the agencies have failed to move upstream into their clientsamp8217 boardrooms amp160Agencies of all hues are still hardly known to CEOs after all most of them still refer to the media agencies as media buyersSpeak to any CEO about McKinsey or Accenture and youamp8217re guaranteed an informed reactionThird the media agency sector or at least that huge part of it represented by the publicly owned marketing services groups long ago decided that their planners strategists and futurists were in effect nothing more than the dancing girls put there to lure punters into the casino where the real business was done in a seedy backroom by the wheelerdealersFourth one exagency executive was given all the evidence he needed to blow the whistleFifth hearing the whistle advertisersamp8217 trust in the network media agencies has collapsed amp160More and more advertisers have decided to act either by reviewing their agency contracts holding pitches based around a rather vague in many instances notion of amp8220transparencyamp8221 or taking more and more of their media spending inhouseThe management consultancies could surely have never imagined being handed a goldplated accessallareas pass into the marketing service businessBut here they are amp160Accenture who have acquired Karmarama in the UK has said they have no interest in the media buying business amp160I bet they havenamp8217t Media buying has been the focal point for the media agenciesamp8217 critics is well on the way to being largely automated out of existence and when other factors are combined with advertiser focus and pressure will become a low margin low interest activityMedia planning on the other hand is classic consultancy territory amp160Datadriven consulting with a dash of creativity must sound familiar amp160Mix in the fact that agencies have indicated by not charging that they themselves donamp8217t really value the discipline and what you have is an open invitation to new entrantsWhen these new entrants have smart people boardroom credibility data expertise and deep pockets to deliver both the best of the agenciesamp8217 staff and the necessary technology well watch outA future Cog Blog will explore the media agenciesamp8217 options amp160Expect it to be shorter than this oneClick the social buttons above or below to share this content with your friends and colleaguesThe opinions and points of view expressed in this content are exclusively the views of the author andor subjects and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated writersamp160

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Advance of the Management Consultancies

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Brian Jacobs

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Advance of the Management Consultancies

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