What Business Are You In?

Do we see an industry within which ads in all channels revert to a norm and creativity including in media choice makes no differenceOr are we going to stand up for individuality and creativityThe former is shortsighted based on an ironic obsession with shortterm margins over longterm prosperity Yet it does seem to be the policy of many of the largest holdcos amp8211 the very people who should be our flagbearersThe trouble is this is a short road to nowhere as a glance down memory lane showsJeremy Bullmore was right amp8216People build brands as birds build nests from scraps and straws we chance uponamp8217Scraps and straws come in all shapes and sizes A purposebuilt nest with them is likely to last longer than one without themBut who needs a nest that lasts Letamp8217s just build a production line churning out identikit cheaper nests and move onAs they put their portfolios together a few decades ago the holdcos saw amp8216media buyingamp8217 as an arcane specialism ignored and not understood by most clients full of numbers and attractive to those believing everything could and should be quantifiedFar easier to deal with hard metrics however spurious than trying to put numbers on feelings emotions creativityToday the talk is of these holdcos reinventing themselves for the AI age as media and or data businesses Including reselling technology and media to clients who once upon a time hired them to act objectively and in their best interests Clients who now find themselves unable to question via audit or compliance everything theyamp8217re being soldThe industry faces an existential threat if it goes down the path decreed by the biggest The holdcos range of sellable expertise is shrinking and has a fastapproaching sellby dateSmaller nimbler players are outdoing them creatively comms planning specialists are thriving by selling objectivity across all channels independent media agencies are winning by offering objectivity in planning delivered through transparent buyingIt must be depressing to sit in a holdco agency doing amazing work on how media channels work only to hear your CEO commit your agencies to spending on social media channels you have just spent months demonstrating arenamp8217t optimal Whatever happened to client needsFurthermore the competitive set is expanding Clients are doing more inhouse the largest vendors are offering creative production and analytic services and are increasingly disintermediating even the largest agenciesItamp8217s hard to see what the giant vendors get from collaborating with the holdcos beyond the medium termFor now it seems that many see their best hope as industrialised ad production and media buying for the incurious and the unwary thereamp8217s a lot of them Buys increasingly untouched by human hand executed by machine Buys offered up by the agency acting as principal Some would argue thatamp8217s unethical ethical or not itamp8217s not a longterm strategy for successIn 1891 a group of advertisers met to discuss the burgeoning business of advertising They set out certain principles amp8216The advertising agents were unfriendly if not definitely hostile amp8230 many of them including some of the biggest held the sole agency for the sale of advertising space in one or more wellknown publications and since amp8230 they depended on the commissions they earned on the space they bought or sold they naturally sided with those who paid them The advertiser like any other buyer amp8230 had the right to know how many copies were sold of the newspapers and magazines in which they advertised Facts and figures were what they wanted not the fables and fantasies to which they were accustomedamp8217 Source ISBAThe result of this meeting was the advertisers getting together to form ISBA and advertising agencies as they were then evolving their creative and thinking capabilitiesToday the ad business is fragmenting We have creative agencies who are stretching what amp8216advertisingamp8217 meansWe have the adtech and platforms who are in the data businessAnd we have many of the largest holdcos increasingly funded by vendors whilst paying lipservice to their clients clients who donamp8217t letamp8217s forget pay for everythingTheyamp8217re the ninetyoners recreating a model that failed 134 years ago And then again in France 32 years ago In both cases the agencies focused on themselves and the shortterm not their clientsamp8217 real business issues or on building longterm partnershipsThe ad business exists to serve clients to offer the best objective advice to make brands famous to balance the longterm with the shortterm to advance thinking by understanding what works to engage with and delight consumers with interesting relevant work to fund quality media channels to provide employment with enjoyment to brilliant peopleAdvertising remains a powerful weapon in building brands and businesses it seems advertisers increasingly donamp8217t need the current large agencies to do it for themWhatever business the ninetyoners are in itamp8217s not the ad businessPosted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

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