Forget 'The Agency of the Future.' Fix 'The Agency of Today'
'The Agency of the Future' gets a lot of attention in the press and at industry conferences. 'The Agency of the Future' partners with its clients, solves brand problems through enhanced creativity, provides digital/integrated solutions, attracts the best industry talent, and competes with consulting firms. It is a wonderful dream that will be realized only if 'The Agency of Today' is fixed. This is not happening.
Is there a 'Normal' to Return to after this Disruption?
Industry pundits have saturated the press with predictions about what the industry will look like after things return to normal. What will happen to media spend? To media mix? How will creative needs change? Will holding companies return to growth? These are legitimate questions. What needs to be acknowledged is that 1) the industry was in a terrible state before COVID-19; 2) executives are now taking steps that will further weaken it; and 3)the industry is certain to be in a worse situation afterwards unless agency CEOs and advertiser CMOs redefine their priorities and directions. I will be joining Jack Myers for a Zoom Collective Leadership for Renewal and Growth conversation on Tuesday May 19 at 1pm ET. Register now at https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_0iYCTActS9CcL9Qg5xXX3g
The Next Big Thing in Media & Advertising: Simplification
It has been 16 years since Facebook's founding and Google's IPO in 2004. Marketing, media, and creative players rushed in to master the new digital and social innovations across all viewing platforms. Complexity replaced simplicity and has grown without bounds. Excess complexity is a disaster. It's time to eliminate it.
Creative Agencies: Winning the Battle but Losing the War
Creative agencies have mastered the requirements of integrated campaigns, from TV to online video, ad banners, email marketing, Facebook, Instagram, and websites. This creative accomplishment is especially noteworthy given the huge volumes of work involved (the typical creative has to generate as many as 300 pieces of work per year). It's a pity, then, that this victory is being undermined by price-cutting strategies that leave agencies understaffed and underpaid. Senior executives need to create winning business practices; they're currently losing the business war.
Hidden Costs of Digital and Social Media
The great hope for digital/social media was addressable advertising, with its lower creation and production costs coupled with higher advertising effectiveness. How could one argue with this formula, particularly while the consuming public was retreating from broadcast advertising? Unrecognized by digital/social enthusiasts, though, are the hidden costs of complexity, which today threaten to erode the marketing effectiveness of advertisers and agencies alike.
Insights About the Unfortunate Decline in Client-Agency Relationships
Have advertisers (and their creative agencies) run out of ideas for improving their relationships? Over the past 30 years, we've seen chronic reductions in agency fees, the growth of scopes of work (SOW), the elimination of agencies-of-record (AOR), the rise of in-house agencies, an increase in agency reviews and, recently, the introduction of "serial project assignments," likened to dating arrangements with boyfriends who never commit. What's going on, here?
30 Years of Consulting to Ad Agencies: Strategic Problems and Solutions
How should advertisers deal with adverse industry conditions? How can they remain effective with customers? What must they do to improve profitability? How can they grow and gain market share? Ad agencies have faced these questions for the past 30 years. Many agencies are worse off today than they were in the past. What are the correct pathways for improved performance?
Clients and Agencies Need to Ditch the Pitch
Clients and Agencies: Don't go there! Putting a relationship in review at the end of a contract is bad business for both parties. It is not "good governance." It does not improve quality. It only reduces fees and generates false expectations. There's a better way to be commercially responsible.
What Drives Holding Company Growth — and What Gets in the Way?
Holding company chief executive officers are responsible for performance, and shareholders and journalists interrogate them when growth rates are down. What's missing are questions about how their agencies manage and measure themselves. Poor agency executive practices are the source of depressed holding company performance. Holding company CEOs have to change the way their agency CEOs manage and measure themselves. Here are seven areas to consider:
Astute Advice for Young Creatives … From a Century Ago
Emil Otto (E.O.) Hoppé was the most famous portrait photographer of his day —one century ago. Hoppé had a reputation like Annie Leibovitz today. He photographed Albert Einstein, King George V, Queen Mary, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, George Bernard Shaw, and many others. He traveled the world from England with his cameras, plates, and chemicals. Aspiring photographers inspired by his work frequently sought his advice. That advice was surprising then and still relevant for young creatives today.
A Young Creative's Experiences in Today's Ad Agency Business
How much has agency life changed in the digital/social age? Is it fundamentally different, or is it déjà vu all over again? Laura Vancil's (pictured above) agency experiences answer both. Vancil, a young copywriter at TBWA\Chiat\Day New York, joined the agency three years ago after graduating from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. She was initially a "floater" in the office, working solo on projects. Now she has an art director partner and is part of a classic two-person creative team. Laura shared her thoughts and experiences with Michael Farmer of MediaVillage.
Reflections on an Ad Industry at War With Itself
The advertising industry, struggling to find ways to generate growth, has instead turned on itself, extracting value from partners rather than finding better ways to provide value to customers. The outcome is predictable, and the consequences may be difficult to reverse.
When Will Procurement Do What It's Supposed to Do?
Before it became involved in the media industry, procurement worked effectively in manufacturing and distribution, ferreting out non-value-added costs, improving processes, closing factories, investing in suppliers, and eliminating complexity. The result: improved quality and lower costs. Exactly the opposite has occurred in the media industry.
Agencies as Business Transformers: The Current State of Play
Agency senior executives are coming to terms with changes in client needs. “More growth” rather than “more creativity” is what they are hearing. The agency of the future is starting to sound more like a consulting firm with media and creative capabilities than a traditional service-oriented agency that wins awards.
GroupM North America CEO Tim Castree on Reigniting Brand Growth for Clients
Tim Castree sat for an interview with Michael Farmer on June 4, 2019, at a “pre-Cannes” rooftop celebration for members of the press and senior executives at GroupM’s headquarters at 3 World Trade Center. He outlined GroupM North America’s strategic priorities for the coming years. Castree (pictured above) has had a multi-faceted senior executive career with creative agencies (head of Account Management at BBH New York, Managing Partner at George Patterson Partners in Sydney and CEO of Leo Burnett Australia) and at media agencies (COO Mediavest USA, CEO Wavemaker and CEO GroupM North America).
Leslie Zane, CEO of Triggers: "All Brands Have Unrealized Growth Potential"
"CMOs are experimenting with many approaches to kickstart brand growth," observes Leslie Zane, CEO of Triggers®, "but it's been difficult to find a winning formula. That's why we see so many cuts in marketing spend. Marketing has lost confidence in marketing. We think that there's a better way to rekindle growth."
Crossmedia’s Kamran Asghar and Martin Albrecht on Acting Like a Perpetual Start-Up
“There are no agencies-of-the-future,” asserts Martin Albrecht. “There are only agencies-of-today that are becoming more effective for their clients … versus agencies-of-today that are losing ground. In a turbulent marketplace, you have to think and act like a perpetual start-up to become more effective.”
Complexity Is a Killer!
Increased complexity has become the new standard in marketing. Increased complexity has been exploited to justify advertisers’ increased control over marketing and to marginalize ad agency involvement. Yet, brands continue to languish. The complexity trend needs to be reversed.
A Tale of Two Charge-Offs: Kraft Heinz vs. WPP
Kraft Heinz recently took a charge-off that shocked investors and led to a share price decline. At about the same time, WPP took a charge-off that reassured investors and led to a share price rise. What's going on here?
