No topic has captivated the imagination of advertising people around the world quite like the “the agency of the future”. Conferences are held to discuss it. Blog posts abound. Twitter is abuzz. Countless articles are published. Almost every agency shamelessly proselytises their “new model” and the supposed glory it can bring to their clients, complete with new job titles and everything.
It has become a cliché to point out that we could have all solved a lot of important problems for our clients in the time we’ve spent debating what the agency of the future will look like, how it will be structured, or arguing over whether agencies in their current form will even exist in the future.
I can’t help but wonder if the answer to this question lies not in our future but in our past. There was a time – not all that long ago in the scheme of things – when advertising agencies were invaluable to their clients business. The days of David Ogilvy, of Leo Burnett, of Bill Bernbach. A time when CEOs worked alongside the agency because the work they were doing was so powerful. An era when agencies drove the agenda with clients through real insights and innovation. When clients went to agencies with business problems and agencies came back with business solutions.
Of course it could never stay this way for long. The easy profits agencies made in the early days would never survive as so many new agencies entered the game, and the balance of power between agencies and clients would soon be restored. Along the way the work that agencies do became a commodity. Clients internalised the strategic role that made agencies so essential, and agencies became order takers rather than order makers – their main purpose became taking detailed briefs from clients and turning them into ads of the specified format.
No doubt the industry has been broken for quite some time, but the financial turmoil that begun in 2007 brought this into sharp focus for many agencies. At best clients demanded more for their buck, at worst they wanted even more for even less. When you’re in a commodity business, account pitches come down to who will offer the required services at the lowest rates. The focus shifted from strategic and creative value to production and efficiencies.
I have no idea what the agency of the future looks like. What I do know is that the rise of the internet and technology has profoundly changed the way brands engage with consumers, just as television revolutionised the way that brands engaged with consumers in the days of Ogilvy and Bernbach. Everyone is scrambling to catch up with these changes. More than ever before clients need agencies to help them navigate this rapidly evolving landscape.
While it’s easy to keep thinking that a 30 second TV spot and 1200 TARPs is the answer to every imaginable problem, today’s forward-thinking agencies have an incredible opportunity to help their clients innovate and connect with consumers in new ways. To drive the agenda with clients through real strategic thinking – not just in their communications but in their products, in their distribution, in their packaging – at every touchpoint where the brand interacts with consumers.
Agencies that ‘get it’ right now are in an extraordinary position. We can help transform our clients’ businesses to make sense in the digital age, and reap the rewards that follow. The blueprint for this was established half a century ago - it worked then and it will work now. We need to take back our seat at the corporate strategy table. We need to re-learn how to speak the language of CEOs and boards. We need to build their trust and respect so that when they come to us with a problem, it’s a business problem rather than an advertising brief. We need to think and work laterally across all areas of the client’s business to solve the problem. Just like those who came before us.