Let’s call it reality. Why agencies will pretty likely stick around.

Februar 8th, 2010 • Allgemein

Bud Caddell from NYC’s Undercurrent has published a great rant about the question on how the agency of the future looks like. As usual it is a great text to read but it ends with a plea to share our opinion. And that is what I do now.

Hi Bud.

I would like to share my opinion with you and I appreciate the time and effort it took to write such a long article about the agency of the future. First up, it’s a good perspective to start a discussion. But before we talk about the question what the agency of the future might look like, let’s begin with the essential question what an agency actually is. At this point we encounter the first logical problem. You won’t find a global definition of “Agency” on Wikipedia. But you will find a definition of “Advertising agency”.

An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising (and sometimes other forms of promotion) for its clients.

If you scroll down a little bit further you will find the chapter “Types of advertising agencies”. It separates different types of agencies – such as Inhouse, Interactive, Search Engine etc.

Simply stunning!!! This little chapter alone demonstrates the disadvantage of 99% of the world’s agency models. It is not at all focused on the core business needs of their clients but on the output the agency founder once planned to generate – SEO, Social…you name it. But do we still have a clear understanding about what we are supposed to produce? In a small poll on my blog last week I asked if there is still such a big line between traditional and new jobs in the industry. The answers ranged from ‘Absolutely. Traditional agencies haven’t got anything to do with digital ones’ to ‘Not at all. The future model is integrated’. Or, to put it another way, there is no average ad guy who has got a precise understanding about what he is supposed to produce anymore. Pure confusion, no matter where you look.

The problem

Agencies are just normal companies in the first place. And then there was the web, this fantastic engine that made all these fantastic concepts of crowdsourced products, E-Learning, brand fandom and LOLcats possible. But, the web is half as old as I am. And 7% as old as the Top 3 ad networks nowadays. Companies such as Ogilvy, JWT, or McCann have been around for decades. They produced innovation at a certain point in time. But unfortunately they cannibalized their own concept. Customers drowned in messages and meaningless awareness campaigns while more and more products hit the markets.

It may sound a little bit cheesy, but my dad told me about his childhood days in Germany last weekend. There was not too much choice when you were a kid in Frankfurt in 1960 – there were only a handful of products, few toys and most of the time you played soccer outside with your friends. According to a study from earlier this month modern kids spend enough time with screens of all kinds to make it a full-time job – 53 hours per week!

What I say is, the crisis of the agency business is the crisis of our society. We just have anything we could dream of. And it’s not a question of traditional versus ‘new’ agencies. It’s not a question whether I drown in traditional or digital messages. It’s just a problem that we possess anything and nothing seems special enough to us anymore. We are not not thrilled by brand campaigns anymore. We aren’t thrilled by anything anymore. We just struggle to stay alive in a sea of stuff.

But let’s get back to topic

Agency-bashing is easy. There’s quite a shitload of bad agencies around. Wannebees who sell pretty much anything to their clients, no matter what the result is. Agencies which are not even able to spell the word strategy. Ridiculous ad brands who try to understand their challenges but are far from that point. But my guess is, most are pretty good. I’ve seen a couple of agencies and most of them did excellent work (well, some didn’t). Most agencies I worked for, including my employer, had an extremely high commitment to the brands they consulted. I know your post is exaggerated in its claims, but to state “Agencies don’t value strategy” or “Agencies don’t care about the brands” is pretty self-righteous.

Most agencies nowadays are faced with a drastic environmental change. They built their business model on selling more or less attractive TV commercials and interacted with big media corporations to buy ad space for their clients. Most of them even believed in what they did (I don’t know one agency which would not care about the results of their work even though their customer was gutted with layoffs).  But they try to learn and understand what they are confronted with. But most agency managers who are responsible for the strategic direction of their shop, are three times older than the internet. They know there is a big change going on but they cannot understand its full force. They want to align their ad brands but simply cannot achieve a 180° turn in such a short time.

Ad agencies fire people too

My point is, it’s far too simplistic to compare ‘good brands’ such as Zappos & Quirky and ‘evil & dumb’ traditional agencies. Most of the agencies worldwide don’t make a Cent in revenue with these comparably small, hot, digital brands. Most agencies still work (and will work) for brands such as Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, or Barnes & Nobles – brands which are still more relevant to the majority of people out there roaming our planet.  And to get one thing straight, these agencies have had a hard time too. Not just because they were so innovation-adverse, but because they simply cannot turn their whole business model around in one day.

They are under pressure by the fact that there is a new marketing manager at ‘their client’ for the third time in three years. They have lost their fourth unpaid pitch in a row, simply they did not pre-arrange a decision on the golf course before they ever entered the meeting room. And yes, they laid off a lot of people too. And not all of them were dumb and unwilling to be innovative. Plus, most of their clients aren’t exactly the brand-loving, passionate, digital innovators that all of us love so much. Let’s call it reality.

I hope to get one thing across. I like your perspective, Bud, and I enjoy the discussion about this topic. But even though I work at one of the more dynamic agencies in this market, I do also still realize that my personal speed is a little bit higher than average. Agencies will learn, big networks will find out how to align with our new reality without “only paying lip service”. And smaller agencies will find their respective niche. But it is simply unfair to compare your personal reality with the realities of literally millions of people working for this industry around the world.

It’s just not the same. Most of them will find their way. Don’t you think so, Bud?

Tags: Agencies, Brands, Business, Debate, Experimental, Future, Prediction, Strategy, Trends

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