The Role of the Agency: Business Shrink

Assuage me.

This is the telepathic message every marketer cries out to a prospective vendor. Sure, some are more confident than others in their ability to build new relationships with consumers, but we all know that the game is changing so rapidly that, well, historical precedents and benchmarks are few and far between.

Psychologically, we can use specific keywords to ease the conversation, words like 'listening', 'advocacy' and 'brand loyalty', but these often fall into a rhetorical place that has no logical return, particularly on investment or intent.

So perhaps we need to get real about the landscape. 

Service layer bundling is already a necessary function of any agency. Either you play in the same sandbox with folks in your peer group, or you run the risk of being shut out by virtue of your resource pool. You can't really hold your cards all that tightly to your chest, because if you do, you'll lose out on critical business opportunities.

Regarding the business opportunities themselves, you can run a separate P&L, but the fact remains that your bottom line has to be tied in some way to that of the client's. Gotta have some skin in the game, son. Especially if we're dealing with outreach strategies and devices that are largely experimental in nature.

We're already at the tipping point. Soon, we will arrive at the transformative point. 

My guess is that we - as in our collective media mass - will be whittled down to publishers, networks and portals, in which we create conversational loops between marketers and consumers and fulfill very specific market needs. 

What is and what will continue to evolve is a new marketplace. What goes in it can be anyone's guess, but rest assured, it will be dictated and navigated by the stakeholders in brands.

Good luck to us all, the future is careening around the corner, Godspeed.

Transmedia Task Forces

There are a lot of very smart people working at creative and media agencies. A lot of great talent to mine. There is no shortage of good ideas. In some cases, robust technologies on offer. In other cases, account management that is deft and multi-functional. Leaders who can do more than just sell. Creatives who understand business objectives. Media folks who get messaging and conversation.

Despite this, the agency construct, by and large, lends itself to failure. We've seen this and talked about it ad nauseam - how departments and disciplines operate in silos, how traditional and digital are at odds, how media and creative don't walk the aisle et cetera et cetera.

So my colleague Ezra Cooperstein, who works at one of the biggest media agencies in the world, made a great point: As the system continues to fight for its self-preservation, why not establish and deploy task forces that exist entirely to run point between these silos?

Ok, so you're probably thinking that this idea isn't anything new, and in theory it really isn't. However, when you look at all the "disruption" groups within agencies and networks, the idea still isn't working. In fact, I would venture to say that many of these groups exist purely to window dress and satiate the paranoia of clients and upper management who need to know that an integrated practice somehow exists or is being put into place.

There is also a much larger issue: finding people who can truly think and speak in a transmedia capacity. If you were reared in a big agency environment, chances are you were groomed as a specialist of one thing or another, or, if you were multi-disciplinary, you were probably discouraged from developing ideas in this way. I can't tell you how many people I know who have suffered this fate, and had to work extra hard to become competent in areas outside of their focus. I can also tell you that personally, this is the first time in my career where having multiple skill-sets has greatly benefitted me... although big (or bigger) agencies are still hesitant to hire me full-time. Go figure.

So, the questions remain: who would make up a task force and how would it operate?

A task force would likely be comprised of anyone who advocates ideas. Sounds rudimentary, I know, but if you really think about, the current system mostly prioritizes placement or mechanism first, and the idea second. How many times have you seen an idea shoe-horned into a media buy? An expensive application built without a strategy? A broadcast campaign with all stars and no substance, not to mention no calls-to-action with complementary media? A viral video campaign that spikes and then dies on the vine? The point is that there are media planners, digital strategists, traffic managers, art directors, web developers, copywriters and biz dev folks who all have the capacity to connect the dots on the landscape and are willing to collaborate. They just need the opportunity. They want to dive into new areas of innovation. They crave the challenge. And, more importantly, these are the folks that are invested in the future of the agency... people who are true "change agents" (Man, I hate that phrase...)

As to how the task force operates, well, this can be sliced any number of ways and really depends on what can be streamlined within the org chart. What often happens with disruption groups is that they have meetings about meetings and don't immerse themselves in the development nitty-gritty of the various departments. They don't really want to know how bad communications or operations can be, and they certainly don't want to management consult, nor do they know how. So, the simple solution starts with a staffing assessment (who is involved in development meetings and what roles to play) and implementing hard-line communication protocols, such as limited email correspondence, no mobile use during meetings and the mandate that everyone has to come to a development meeting with a potential solution set laid out. And the respect to all the inter-departmental briefs that are generated during "phases"... whittle that mess down to one initial brief, one mid-point summary and then an activation plan.

This is clearly fodder for a much deeper conversation, but you get the point. 

Look, we all seem drawn to this crazy business because of those intermittent and often fleeting connections we make with consumers. We recognize that advertising can be such a powerful thing. So maybe it's time we got our act together. After all, we're consumers too, and if nothing else, we owe it to ourselves. 

Media and Message

I've been reading a lot lately in various industry posts and forums about the use of social media utilities like Twitter. Personally, I don't Tweet (or blog for that matter) all that much, but, that's not to say that these tools don't have tremendous value. I suppose it really depends on the needs of the individual or company. More importantly, what's undeniable is the real-time ability to cut through social network layers that can grind correspondences to a slow crawl. Bottom line: choose your channels wisely, and whatever happens to be your preference, it's the message, the ideas, that matter most. We are witnessing a radical shift in information sharing as well as experience sharing. And that is something we can all be very excited about. 

The interesting thing in my discussions with agencies and brands alike is a general unwillingness to adapt and try these new tools. Creatives and brand marketing folks tend to think that their message and brand experience gets lost somehow. Media people fear that these platforms will affect their buys (and they do, but mostly in a positive way) and therefore their bottom line. Technology folks don't really want to hear either side and would rather push for things that support the large "robust" backend frameworks they've already built. But who suffers in the end? The consumer.

Look out in a couple weeks for an article that addresses the issue head-on with some interesting case studies on that little thing called "ROI".