Now Reading | Agency Leaders Predict What We’ll Be Talking About A Year From Now.
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/agency-leaders-predict-what-well-be-talking-about-year-now-163640
I love articles like this. They give you a little glimpse into the future and into the minds of other agency leaders who are striving for what is best for their clients just like we are. Ours is an industry that is ever-changing, ever-metamorphic, and you have to constantly be willing and able to reinvent yourself. In the 20 years that I have been in advertising, I have had to change our agency structure significantly several times. You have to stay relevant to how your clients want you to work with them and serve their brands.
I love to see that the same things we are debating at Fierce are the same things being discussed here: working with custom teams vs. bringing specialization in house, project work vs. retainer work, keeping up with technology, and continuing towards better and more impactful storytelling. I also love the different opinions offered because I know that there is no simple answer. For Fierce, we build custom teams for our clients where the exact right leading industry experts are at the table, working together every day to accomplish the clients goals. Strategy, research, media, creative, e-commerce–whatever the team is, every person knows each other, intimately knows the client, knows the strategy, the end game, and is working together every day to get there. This works for us and it works for our clients–for today.
Here are few thoughts on the future from the Adweek article:
“We have lost a lot as an industry by clients having 15 different vendors who don’t know each other, who show up at maybe a meeting once a quarter or once every six months. And the fact that we don’t spend a lot of time sometimes with our media partners on behalf of our clients is criminal,” Sheldon said. “This era of specialization—I get that. We’re all supposed to be specialists. But I think it can all be done under one roof.” -Deusch North American CEO Mike Sheldon.
“It’s going to be the AOR versus the projects and do we turn into production companies,” said Butler, the agency’s executive creative director. “What I mean by that is at a production company, there’s not a real staff, right? They kind of bring them in and then they go, bring them in and then they go.” What’s more, projects are challenging operationally because, by definition, they don’t supply recurring revenue, Butler said. “And so, how do you staff for that?” -Butler, Shine, Stern & Partners’ John Butler.
“Technology is moving so quickly that I do worry about bringing all that production and making inside the agency versus go more back to the production model from film, where you understand the creative, the thinking and the idea that you want to make but you go out there and find the best idea makers,” said Credle, the shop’s chief creative officer for North America. “How much can we actually afford to build in-house and not only afford financially but afford because it changes so rapidly?” -Leo Burnett’s Susan Credle
“I hope that we’re celebrating more storytelling and our craft as an industry because with marketing automation and programmatic buying, so much of the bottom of the funnel is going to be taken care of,” Kennedy said. “I think there’s going to be a renewed emphasis on brilliant storytelling by real practitioners that know what they’re doing—I hope.” -Sally Kennedy, CEO of Publicis Hawkeye in Dallas.
