There is a famous quote that goes “Today is the tomorrow that you worried about yesterday”
And one of the current ‘worry’ topics is the future structure of the advertising agency. The last big change in this area was the unbundling of the media agency and that was over a decade ago!
After media unbundling, practically every communication specialist has started outside of the advertising agency model. You just have to look at the proliferation of specialist areas like digital, direct marketing, CRM, rural, events, promotions, branded content, brand consulting…. and the list goes on. The inescapable truth is that the future has just bypassed the traditional advertising agency.
I should admit that I am one of the few who have taken advantage of the ‘unbundling’. I have learnt about brands from quasi-marketers in the full service agency. I have learnt about observing consumers for creative inspiration in the unbundled creative agency. And I am still learning about data-driven communication solutions in a media agency.
While the romantic in me desires the full service agency model, the reality of today’s environment is the unbundled specialist.
The reasons for this unbundling have been both rational and emotional. Rationally, specialization is a natural response to the shareholders demand to overcome reducing compensations. And emotionally, there is the desire of each specialization to be in charge of its own destiny rather than being under the shadow of the big brother creative agency.
However, the biggest loser in this unbundling has been the brand – the idea of investing systematically in keeping the brand refreshed, differentiated and relevant to its consumers so as to create a long term organizational asset is being compromised in an unbundled world.
This is because each specialist (by their very definition) makes claims to be the most appropriate solution for the brand in the immediate context.
This begs the question - who is the brand’s guardian today? Who salvages the brand from the crossfire of specialists (each claiming first rights on ‘brand stewardship’)?
With no immediate solution in the horizon, marketers who specialize in demand creation are being forced to create consumer competencies within their own team. However, this is a compromised solution since these consumer ‘experts’ in the client team see people only through the narrow lens of their own category. They lack the natural advantage of cross-category consumer understanding.
Given that the unbundled specialist is a reality of today’s environment just as much as the need for a touch-point neutral brand champion, how does one reconcile these two seemingly opposite demands?
My solution – identifying a set of “uber-planners” – cross functional specialists who purely focus on consumer and brand planning for demand creation. The primary responsibility of these uber-planners would be to decipher and interpret the brand ethos not only to their own specialization but to all specializations working on the brand. And hence, they could physically reside in any specialization – media, creative, direct marketing, digital etc.
Call them specialization-agnostic brand curators, if you may.
These uber-planners (named so purely for convenience of understanding and with no implication of any class bias) would need to have cross functional expertise in various disciplines of communication and marketing while having primary competence in consumer understanding. They would need to comfortable in both the qualitative and quantitative worlds. And, most importantly, they must be staunch believers in the brand cause without any vested affiliations.
Too romantic a notion? Not really, because these planners would become new business magnets for any agency. And because they address a real client need, (I assume) clients will be willing to separately compensate for the service.
While I personally prepare for this eventuality, the existing models of collaboration seem to be one of three – creating a bespoke client organization of specialists from within the network (WPP), a lead agency responsible for strategy (like BBH / W&K) with supplier specialists reporting in to them and lastly, creating a collaborative platform of preferred partners (CARAT). While I am not in a capacity to comment on the first two models, I do know a little more on the third model of true collaboration.
Carat is the only ‘genuinely’ independent media agency in the world with no affiliations with any other communication specialization. We have embraced collaboration as one of our core organizational values with curiosity and creativity being the others. This recognizes that we live in a networked world of specialists where the end goal of all partners is superior brand results.
As a result of this organizational value, while interacting with other specialists, we take great pains to be non-threatening and be more goal-obsessed than power-obsessed. And we have taken the lead and made significant progress in identifying, recruiting and training communication planners with cross functional expertise and passion for consumer centricity.
So what will the future advertising agency look like?
It depends on whether you are dealing with the imminent reality of a multimedia future or if you are still obsessed with the past and looking at the minutiae of your TV campaign. You do not need a brand curator to tell you what happens to people who have their backs to the future.
And one of the current ‘worry’ topics is the future structure of the advertising agency. The last big change in this area was the unbundling of the media agency and that was over a decade ago!
After media unbundling, practically every communication specialist has started outside of the advertising agency model. You just have to look at the proliferation of specialist areas like digital, direct marketing, CRM, rural, events, promotions, branded content, brand consulting…. and the list goes on. The inescapable truth is that the future has just bypassed the traditional advertising agency.
I should admit that I am one of the few who have taken advantage of the ‘unbundling’. I have learnt about brands from quasi-marketers in the full service agency. I have learnt about observing consumers for creative inspiration in the unbundled creative agency. And I am still learning about data-driven communication solutions in a media agency.
While the romantic in me desires the full service agency model, the reality of today’s environment is the unbundled specialist.
The reasons for this unbundling have been both rational and emotional. Rationally, specialization is a natural response to the shareholders demand to overcome reducing compensations. And emotionally, there is the desire of each specialization to be in charge of its own destiny rather than being under the shadow of the big brother creative agency.
However, the biggest loser in this unbundling has been the brand – the idea of investing systematically in keeping the brand refreshed, differentiated and relevant to its consumers so as to create a long term organizational asset is being compromised in an unbundled world.
This is because each specialist (by their very definition) makes claims to be the most appropriate solution for the brand in the immediate context.
This begs the question - who is the brand’s guardian today? Who salvages the brand from the crossfire of specialists (each claiming first rights on ‘brand stewardship’)?
With no immediate solution in the horizon, marketers who specialize in demand creation are being forced to create consumer competencies within their own team. However, this is a compromised solution since these consumer ‘experts’ in the client team see people only through the narrow lens of their own category. They lack the natural advantage of cross-category consumer understanding.
Given that the unbundled specialist is a reality of today’s environment just as much as the need for a touch-point neutral brand champion, how does one reconcile these two seemingly opposite demands?
My solution – identifying a set of “uber-planners” – cross functional specialists who purely focus on consumer and brand planning for demand creation. The primary responsibility of these uber-planners would be to decipher and interpret the brand ethos not only to their own specialization but to all specializations working on the brand. And hence, they could physically reside in any specialization – media, creative, direct marketing, digital etc.
Call them specialization-agnostic brand curators, if you may.
These uber-planners (named so purely for convenience of understanding and with no implication of any class bias) would need to have cross functional expertise in various disciplines of communication and marketing while having primary competence in consumer understanding. They would need to comfortable in both the qualitative and quantitative worlds. And, most importantly, they must be staunch believers in the brand cause without any vested affiliations.
Too romantic a notion? Not really, because these planners would become new business magnets for any agency. And because they address a real client need, (I assume) clients will be willing to separately compensate for the service.
While I personally prepare for this eventuality, the existing models of collaboration seem to be one of three – creating a bespoke client organization of specialists from within the network (WPP), a lead agency responsible for strategy (like BBH / W&K) with supplier specialists reporting in to them and lastly, creating a collaborative platform of preferred partners (CARAT). While I am not in a capacity to comment on the first two models, I do know a little more on the third model of true collaboration.
Carat is the only ‘genuinely’ independent media agency in the world with no affiliations with any other communication specialization. We have embraced collaboration as one of our core organizational values with curiosity and creativity being the others. This recognizes that we live in a networked world of specialists where the end goal of all partners is superior brand results.
As a result of this organizational value, while interacting with other specialists, we take great pains to be non-threatening and be more goal-obsessed than power-obsessed. And we have taken the lead and made significant progress in identifying, recruiting and training communication planners with cross functional expertise and passion for consumer centricity.
So what will the future advertising agency look like?
It depends on whether you are dealing with the imminent reality of a multimedia future or if you are still obsessed with the past and looking at the minutiae of your TV campaign. You do not need a brand curator to tell you what happens to people who have their backs to the future.
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