Loading ...Agency Organization - Grey is the new black (Part I)…
In a recent blog post (Is your brand a rebellious teenager?) I shared a paradigm for how Marketers should be thinking about brand “ownership.” This entry explores the impact of two of the three parties in that paradigm (i.e. Brand Team and Agencies). The quality of the work delivered by the individual agencies within the family are driven, at least in part, by strategic decisions the client makes about how to choose the members of the agency family.
This post provides a simplified view of the most basic, yet most impact full decision every client must make.
The Cocktail Party
One of the most common questions at Agency Cocktail Parties these days (and the recent ANA Masters of Marketing Summit) is “What is the agency of the future going to look like?” Specifically, should services (e.g. Media vs Creative, Traditional vs Digital, etc) be combined within a single shingle, or should services be split amongst specialist agencies. Many of the big name TV Ad Agencies are rapidly adding Digital Capabilities and are advocating the One Agency approach. The specialist agencies are sticking to their knitting and advocating a Best-In-Class approach.
The underlying assumption of both approaches is that there will be a single model for how a successful agency will be organized in the future. I believe that assumption is deeply flawed.
A Different Perspective…
I am new to the agency side of our industry. A mere 3 months ago I was on the client side. I had spent the previous 16 years at large CPG/Beverage companies. One of my roles over the last half-dozen years or so was to act as an Ombudsman (Marriage Counselor) between our roster of Interactive Agencies and the Brand Teams they served. This role gave me a great deal of insight into the the factors that make for an effective relationship between Agency and Client. The most important of these lessons was perhaps also the simplest.
Fit is Critical
There are many elements of fit (list not exhaustive)…
- Account Team Fit with Key Client contact
- Agency Cultural Fit with Client
- Agency Organization Approach/Business Model Fit with Client
Put a different way, by-and-large, Clients are not going to modify their needs, wants, desires, processes, staffing, etc. to integrate well with the agency or agencies. The agency or family of agencies has the onus to determine the unarticulated needs and wants of the client and then be flexible enough to address them.
This skill should sound familiar. It is the same skill that agencies use everyday to craft messages for consumers!
To be continued…
Personally, given the marketing challenges most organizations are going to be facing with an ever increasing media fragmentation and an ADD customer, clients are going to have to reconsider how they interface with their communications partners. It is not going to be good enough to insist their agencies do all the changing solely unless they want to continue to waste valuable time and money on the blame game and Agency reviews every 18 months.
Having often played the bridge in my consulting practice between clients and their partners, I would suggest that an Agency just bending to their clients wants, desires etc. won’t necessarily give the best result. Working in partnership with them collaboratively to figure the best way forward (and that often means process changes on both sides) for the end marketing result is IMHO, the better way to go.
Order takers should only exist in restaurants….
Interesting post. Most of the issues you’ve dealt with here, however, have been dealt with since the beginning of marketing agencies, back in the 1930s. Without going back that far, still, it’s possible to save a lot of time and effort and empty chatter by knowing more about the prior discussions. Maybe part of the problem is that everyone at your Cocktail Party appears to be under 30 years of age. Not a lot of experience.