What's Next: The End Of The Advertising Business!!

Another doomsday report about how badly advertising agencies suck. this one from our friends at Forrester.

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i55bff7bc1a68eceffaee3b78157de9b9

I read a similar report from Accenture.

Who knew things were this bad?

Well, all of us.

These reports don't have anything new to say. Agencies haven't embraced digital fast enough. Agencies haven't embraced analytics fast enough. The results of the Forrester report are based on answers to questions that were posed to clients.

Clients saying negative things about agencies? It must all be true.

I say bullshit.

We talk about this EVERYDAY where I work and I know that they are doing the same thing at the other major agency companies. We have put in place and are hiring as fast as we can people who get this, and they are helping us drive change as quickly as possible. And you know what, it's working.

Are the clients keeping up? Some yes, and some no.

But I'm a bit tired of constantly hearing how bad we are at what we do. the industry is changing, and rapidly. We get it. And some of us are actually trying to drive that change in ways that will help change the ways that agencies come up with solutions for our clients.

Comments

[Peter Kim]

Agreed, the agency business is changing rapidly - for example, everyone is watching what you do with Project Davinci and waiting for details to emerge. But are there dissatisfied clients out there? Yes, we spoke with them. Will there be agency winners? Yes, I spoke with some of them too. Will there be losers? No doubt. As someone who is leading one of the most interesting experiments today, I would think that you'd embrace the Connected Agency idea as it creates greater competitive differentiation - unless of course you're moving in the opposite direction.

For any clients or colleagues who'd like to read the report beyond the Adweek article, it's available at http://www.forrester.com/connectedagency

[Julie]

Everyone is a critic - it is easy to sit on the outside and make judgements about how an industry should be changing or should perform, however it is much harder making that change with the eyes of the world on you. This is the situation for both marketers and their agency partners - technology has hit these business areas straight between the eyes in the last couple of years. As client side marketers are being challenged by their own organisations to reduce costs, take advantage of new communication challenges, show return on marketing investments to the board - they in turn are asking their agency partners to map their businesses to come new now they are expected to develop new business operating models, create new services and deliver ROI analytics from all the mediums with the eyes of the business world watching them.

How many other departments(manufacturing, logistics, sales) in a global company have had to make radical changes with the world commenting on their progress on their websites and/or blogs every time they made a mistake or a decision that the author did not agree with? How many banks can give you a 360 view of their customers – not mine - and they are veterans in using technology to support their business.

All global businesses are facing huge challenges to service each other and to service their regional and local customers too - why is the spotlight on marketing departments and agencies? I am not defending either as they have a LOT of catching up to do and a LOT of embracing of new people with new skills and ideas in their businesses to make this change successful – it is easy to criticise without understanding the full complexity of the problem and it is a COMPLEX problem – people, politics, operating models, cultural differences, adoption of technology to support the business, adoption of technology to provide new services to clients, competing in a new market…..the list goes on. Instead of criticising maybe there could be some constructive advice and case studies on some of the success stories and how the challenges were overcome.