Advertising Agencies Struggling to Lead Clients
Tuesday, June 9, 2009 at 03:18PM If you work with or for an agency (either internally or externally),
what barriers to full marketing integration do you see?
In a state of rapid change, agencies are grappling with their roles as
marketing consultants and leaders to their clients.
In "Navigating the Agency Landscape" by Sean Corcoran for Interactive
Professionals published May 21, 2009 by Forrester, agencies are dealing
with a world of added complexities.
For one, consumer media consumption habits have fragmented at an
increasing rate with the advent of online marketing.
In addition, the internal skill silos and stress between competing
agencies have not gone away.
In addition, poor communications by client's and the lack of know-how
from client procurement teams exacerbate the problem.
So the research report from the Forrester authors provide some hard
guidelines to both agencies and their clients for breaking down the
silos that continue to waste energy and diffuse focus.
The first and most important of these is for the client to set clear
business objectives and the desired outcomes they expect from their
agency resource.
In fact, clients should recognize that agencies are equipped to lead
interactive marketing strategies.
Agencies, on the other hand, should not send the senior team out to
pitch the business and assign a junior team after winning the account.
The biggest lesson of all for advertising agencies is to redefine the
marketing mix to match the market realities by including social media
that have become an important part of the marketing opportunity.
As the report says so well:
"The walls keep tumbling down as traditional advertising models for
advertising, PR, and research evolve into customer centered
communication tools that enable listening, talking and interrelating
with customers and prospects on a regular basis."
The Forrester report goes into more recommendations and detail than we
can cover here. Suffice it to say that marketing always involved a
certain element of fast change and ambiguity.
Most people in the business gravitate toward ambiguity and intellectual
tasks that require creativity. But most of us are trained to drive
revenue with clear objectives and strategies. And companies now demand
results with new media that are still evolving and have not developed
mature evaluation criteria.
What other advice would you give to agencies and their clients to
create more balanced marketing programs?
Advertising Agencies in General, Online Marketing 
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Reader Comments (4)
Sometimes what you need is a piece of advertising that capitalizes on THE MOMENT. Let's call it zen direct marketing. The problem with many agencies and their clients is they do some work together and the clients want to bland it down to work with everything else they're doing when what they really need is a shot in the arm and something that they can run or mail during a specific period of time when they have a unique sales message. What happens is instead of going full force with the message, the client is thinking, "And if it works, we want to run this all year long/next year" or in the case of really strapped clients "forever."
So my point is really a counterpoint about needing to seize the moment with advertising. Be timely. That will grab interest from people who can relate to the current/urgent need. Of course, the message may be a timeless one that is not easily molded to the current market environment ...
In which case, woe be to the client who thinks their message is so timeless and relevant that it can be spread over every media known to ad men and women ... and work.
I worked at an agency from 1985-2003, and my biggest clients from 2003 to now are agencies. I'm speaking from that experience.
Your great comment just proves that the agency can lead only if the client is WILLING to follow.
Advertising needs are becoming more complex and online advertising can often times be even more tricky with all the technical barriers that can arise in the new tech world.
migree. It's always been technical and complex in marketing. But the tools are improving at an even faster rate IMHO.
The challenge is not to rely solely on technology and tactics at the expense of planning and well thought through strategies.