Agencies of the Future May Be Unrecognizable – And That’s a Good Thing
This article originally appeared in Ad Age as part of the Publishing Partner program.
According to a recent survey from the Interactive Advertising Bureau, nearly a quarter of media buyers, planners and brands will not begin reinvesting in media until the end of the second quarter, and even then the levels of investment, especially when it comes to traditional media budgets, are still in question. Around the globe, ad spend is falling in crucial markets, including the United States, which is down an anticipated 10 percent year-over-year in the first half of 2020, and in China, down an expected 8 percent YoY, according to projections by eMarketer and Accenture.
Of course it’s not all doom and gloom; in fact, over the last week data shared by Advertiser Perceptions signals a clear rebound on the horizon. From a longer-term win perspective, many agencies already had the groundwork in place to help clients embrace the online opportunity and are now putting themselves on an even faster track to evolve with the acceleration happening in digital.
But what about those just now reacting to this shift—to this challenge—that we did see coming? Worse, what about the agencies that are still trading predominantly on traditional media buying through a cut of ad spend alone?
If agencies’ main activity is no longer to just buy media, then their focus must be on strategic guidance based on their wealth of collective experience and broad perspective spanning industries, markets and platforms—part of what has always made agencies more valuable than any in-house or consultative alternative. So it makes sense that many have made a move in this direction, with a marked increase in “strategy” job titles and efforts to repackage offerings into consultative services, though the teams serving clients are still predominantly in media buying roles. But this is just a cosmetic exercise that isn’t fooling savvy clients.
Further along, some agencies are transitioning to having a primary focus on media while also working on a full-time equivalent, or FTE, basis, where a client is open and eager to put their time against other areas—for instance, applying traditional media buying activity such as forecasting to a variety of other demand forecasting efforts across a business. This is indeed forward-thinking, but it’s really only the middle ground to where agencies could and need to be.
The future is set for agencies who truly commit to a new type of service model and genuine consultative services that support clients in navigating through the complex scenarios they face today.Those who will succeed will reach far beyond the areas they currently work in, applying their experience and expertise to broader areas where insights once delivered to influence marketing decisions can also be used to guide a business’ strategies around staffing, supply chain or company logistics.
This wider focus on skill sets across strategy, technology and analysis, now, will build the foundation for an agency’s future talent structure. Whatever happens to media buying in the future, these roles won’t be dictated by further automation of the major platforms. In fact, they’ll be elevated by them, because jobs can be done faster and smarter while saving the real brainpower for solving problems and challenging clients with fresh thinking.
There’s still a crucial place for agencies to truly serve the modern brands of the future, but this place won’t be occupied by media planners beholden to any one digital ad platform. Instead, strategic and statistical thinkers and teams need to be built with the goal of nurturing long-standing partnerships with clients, where there is fluidity with services and resources in order to impact brands’ businesses as a whole where and when they need it most.
This might render agencies of the future completely unrecognizable. But would this be such a bad thing?
By Tom Manning
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