are amalgamations of staff from numerous agencies, with their own offices, websites and monikers. WPP says that there are now more than 30 of these teams.”
And Now the Future
For years we have been advocating a system where the agency model mirrors the CMO’s multiple responsibilities—creative, media, digital, promotion, PR, branding, direct, data analysis etc. The new model would have an agency leader to mirror the CMO to become their alter ego and primary resource. Agency holding companies are uniquely positioned to effect this change. Certainly WPP’s most publicized team concept addresses that, as have attempts by Procter & Gamble (BAL system) and American Express’ Integrated Marketing Approach—both of the latter were introduced only a few years ago.
The new integrated marketing agency that reports to the client and serves many different marketing services needs in one place, we believe, is the future. Clients have told us that one of their biggest problems is working with several agencies to coordinate and collaborate on customized marketing solutions. Furthermore, over the past five years marketing services integration has ranked among the top three client concerns every year.
Of course change is not easy. Here are some pros and cons to the system.
Pros:
The team is easier for the client to manage since the leader of the team mirrors nearly all of the business interests of the client CMO.
Over time the team is likely to assume the personality of the client as much as the personalities of the various agencies from which they came.
Potentially client/agency relationship longevity could be improved, since the vested interests of both parties are more closely aligned. While individual members of the team may leave from time to time, holding company leadership is very involved with client business and relatively stable.
In comparison with a group of agencies from the same holding company, it avoids inter-agency squabbles over egos and siloed profit margin goals. Besides, the team could be more cost effective, since there can be one blended overhead rate and profit margin as opposed to many.
Cons:
Clients want best-in-breed specialists for their business and the ability to select agencies they believe qualify. The team is selected from within the holding company mainly by the holding company. The hope is that best-in-breed individuals will be assigned to the team.
The personalities of the various agencies within the holding company are likely to fade over time. Agency personalities are largely responsible for styles of creative thinking that could be lost. To continue to be valuable over time the team must not totally assume the identity of the client, but must maintain some of the independent personality of the holding company or at least that of their own strong team leadership.
In-depth resources for each discipline are expensive, especially in today’s data-driven world. The team most likely will have to dip into the resources of existing specialty agencies within the holding company, sometimes standing in line from the outside. However, some of this already exists within the current holding company structure.
Creative talent, regardless of discipline, can get bored working on the same problems over and over again. Some allowance might have to be made to inject variety. This could mean that some agency people might work with more than one team, while the most senior marketing leadership remains completely dedicated to the single client.
Summing Up: The Integrated Multi-discipline Marketing Agency seems to reflect the natural evolution of where our business is going in an increasingly more complicated environment. We believe this concept most closely fits the future needs of client CMOs who long for integrated solutions and CPOs who want more cost effective solutions. This model also helps agencies who want to find ways to build and maintain loyal client business over a long period of time.
SF 2014
Zelig and the Death of Identity
“What happened to the reflexive response to an agency name?”
Woody Allen’s 1983 movie Zelig told the story of a chameleon man who adopted the identity of anyone who was nearby. As a result he lost his own identity. Today that is known as Multiple Personality Disorder. In any event, in trying to adapt to his environment a person loses himself. I believe our industry is in the midst of a huge identity crisis.
ODing on ID
What happened to the reflexive response to an agency name? Bates = USP, Ogilvy = research based, B&B = marketing, DDB = unbridled creative, Burnett = icons. Sure, there are a handful of shops with fine creative reputations today—but nothing like before. For my money, one of the last really strong agency associations was the media agency Carat in David Verklin’s day. Everyone inside and out considered them “a hip research company practicing media.”
So here we are in the business of giving brands an identity, but we struggle when we try to do it for ourselves.
I once worked at an agency where the founder/creative director was so prolific he could turn out a dozen campaigns for clients in a day. Some were superior. At one point he took it upon himself to redesign the agency’s business cards. That took him six months. Sometimes looking in the mirror and reflecting what you see can be difficult.
Take this test. Below are the names of a mix of twenty holding companies, full-service agencies, creative, media and digital agencies. Each one of these is among the top in their category. See if you can easily assign an identity adjective to each. I know you can with some, but it is becoming increasingly difficult to do with more than a few.
In the ’90s we had Goodby, TBWA/Chiat Day, Donny, Irwin, Erwin and Sir Martin. We still have most of them, but where is the next generation that will elevate our business so even those still to come will aspire to our craft?
Agency in a Bag
Don’t we tell candidates for a job to have an elevator speech that clearly distinguishes them from the pack in thirty seconds or less? Are agencies just wearing a bag of omni-identity over their heads in a determined effort not to take a chance on standing for something?
Identity loss happens everywhere today. Sometimes the theft is literal and digital. That can cost you money, time and a lot of aggravation. Sometimes the theft is metaphorical. Call up any utility company and you are guaranteed to get a cheerful robotic voice that assures you that your call is important to them. Then after identifying yourself by phone number or date of birth to a recording, you wait. Eventually a person will come on the line and request your phone number or date of birth once again. I am almost certain that neither will have changed between the two requests. Ah—the slow death of service.
From Midgets Come Giants
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