Search results matching tag 'agencies'

Who needs Ad Agencies

2116546 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:10:00 GMT

After spending a couple of days digesting this news I'm still not entirely sure what I think about it so excuse the brain dump.

I do think it fits into the viral subject however as Ideas Bounty is surely a viral exercise in itself but can this really work as a sustainable model across a brand's advertising. I'm not a huge fan of over-inflated ad agency models myself but there's more to creative than just shitting out a one-off idea. Isn't the Peperami brief (which is a tactical element of the overall 'Animal' creative concept) essentially another lazy UGC campaign in the same vein as Doriotos, Confused.com and quite a few others? It's great news if a client is taking more responsibility for the creative output of their brand, but it's not like Creative Agencies have been doing absolutely nothing for the past 50 years; is it?

What’s the future of music sourcing & buying for brands? Part one

2119887 — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 16:29:00 GMT

Many of us in agencies, record labels, music publishers and music consultancies are looking to answer this question.

There are many issues to consider, most of which concern how one interest group is changing its relationship with another:

* Brand & agency relationships
* Music talent & music industry relationships
* Music consumer & music industry relationships

For this piece, let’s look at the changing nature of brand & agency relationships. We need to look back first before looking forward.

Agencies (of all kinds) have historically been the gatekeepers of client relationships. Agencies recruited and managed supply chains, and suppliers were kept away from clients. Agencies were always positioned as the experts to make the best decisions on:

* Creative collaborators (or creative assets) for a particular project. In ATL, key collaborators include the director/production company, the on-screen talent, the post-house and the music production company/composer. Creative assets include stock footage and existing music tracks.
* The commercial terms on which these creative collaborators were engaged or creative assets were purchased.

Many agencies liked to maintain linear top-down operational relationships with suppliers in order to :

* Control the creative agenda
* Control the financial agenda (allowing mark-up on supplier invoices)

Where the agency’s creative agenda (i.e. getting the client to sign-off the work) was served by delaying creative decisions, this would often impact the financial agenda by raising supplier costs. Nowhere more is this true than for licensed music where 11th hour clearances inevitably come with premium level licensing fees. Given agencies aren’t spending their own money, this situation served both agencies and favoured suppliers well. This became even more true as client procurement departments shaved margins on agency fees, which agencies sought to replace with mark-ups on supplier costs.

During the early-mid noughties, the linear top-down model began to be challenged through the rise of client procurement departments and independent production/marketing procurement consultancies. These specialists started to demand better justification for agency creative decisions in relation to the corresponding costs. Invoices were demanded and examined, and in some case poor (or borderline negligent) practices were uncovered. The harsh economic realities of 2008 & 2009 have exacerbated clients’ need to secure best value in all purchases. Cost inefficiencies (i.e. overpaying) that might have been tolerated in the good times pre Summer 2007, are certainly intolerable during 2009 into 2010.

So what next? What will the future look like?

The obvious answer is decoupling – the removal of campaign execution from agencies. Of course agencies are fighting back hard against this trend. They need to protect mark-up on supplier costs which frequently covers the overhead of in-house production staff (where the agency fee no longer does). The truth is that decoupling won’t work in every case, though increasingly clients are considering it.

One interesting recent development here:

Campaign’s graduate-focussed issue of 25th September ’09 included an article by recent agency recruits entitled “If I Launched An Agency”. Common predictions about future agencies throughout the various pieces were:

* Minimal numbers of employed staffers
* High reliance on outsourced expertise
* No fixed physical presence
* Constantly adapting agency identity including name

This points perhaps to a future where lean agencies hold the high ground on brand strategy & creative, but outsource execution to avoid the overhead of hiring & housing production departments. Remote contractors across all production disciplines (including music) will work directly for clients within an outsourced web, coordinated by production and marketing procurement consultants. This situation already exists for some clients who no longer want to support the overhead of large roster agencies – sadly this has led to redundancies in many places. The opportunities are now there for specialist contractors who can add more value, at greater speed for lower costs.

So what are the key tips here for clients?

1. Insist on competitive tendering for production suppliers and don’t rely on one recommendation as the sole solution.

2. Insist on greater visibility in the supplier chain. Know the end-recipients of your production budget and ensure you're receiving the full value of their product/service and not losing it through mark-ups.

3. Take advantage of best-practice process from those with niche expertise in specific fields – this will include music, on-screen talent and photography. Demand that those who buy products/services on your behalf are fully aligned with the brand’s agenda. A loyal partner should be able to look the client in the eye and truthfully answer the question: “What’s a fair price to pay for ….?”

4. Audit productions after the event. Was the optimum cost-efficiency achieved? If not, why not? Learn from mistakes and instil process to avoid repetition.

Anyone know the ad agency looking after Oriflame at the moment?

2546287 — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 13:40:45 GMT

Desperatley need to find this out soon...please help me lots!!

How to win business pitches......

2621936 — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 11:00:15 GMT

For most of us, the opportunity to communicate, to impress and to really sell oneself and services doesn’t come along every day. So when an opportunity does knock it’s difficult to understand why there is such a lack of thought and effort put into so many presentations. An engaging PowerPoint presentation can be the winning factor in delivering a business pitch.

In economically challenging times, ask yourself, can you really afford to stand up in front of a captive audience and then waste that audience’s time? We’ve all been there, sitting in a boardroom, a conference or sometimes even at an event watching painfully while one lost soul proceeds to point aimlessly at a PowerPoint presentation. Mind-numbing stuff, they read off the first slide and then every slide after that, there is little imagery – if any, and one has to wonder, do they even realise that they have an audience? Opportunity lost.

PowerPoint can be an amazing tool if you know how to use it, or it can be the death of you and your audience if you don’t. But if you’re one of those trying to blame the software then come on people, wake up and smell the coffee and get some help.

Any more thoughts?

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De-fragmenting digital

692072 — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 10:17:00 GMT

- Most clients have a web agency, an online media agency, an online advertising agency... Some have an email delivery platform, or an email marketing agency, SEO and PPC specialists. And then the advertising agency or the sales promotion agency do tactical stuff (virals and vouchers, gobbling money to little useful gain). You might have some of these, or work for one.

Most clients spend lots of time getting their agencies to improve what they've got by 3%. That's a 3% better website, or a 3% better performing ad campaign. It's all, from what I can see, very tactical, very incremental, deeply fragmented.

But we're in a recession, and it's just not good enough. There's a huge opportunity to think again, to take stock and look around at what's possible today, not what was possible five years ago when you started on the road to improvement. Today customers expect to have a voice, they expect you to listen to their needs, observe their behaviour and deliver them relevant, timely brand-engagement-inducing nudges and touches, wherever they are, online or off.

ECRM offers a slightly different way of looking at things, provided you define eCRM as a strategic approach rather than an executional method. It requires that you head back into the customer data, evaluate all the touchpoints you currently have - the website, ads, emails, SMS, social media - and create a strategy that is designed not to have the most engaging website, but the most engaging customer journey. This way you become channel-agnostic, and digital execution becomes subservient to how you relate to your customers, not the other way round.

It's worked particularly well for companies like McCain Foods who've turned digital on its head and are now having a single conversation across several different channels. Brand engagement with brand resistors has gone up from 14% to 63% in ten months, which is staggering.

Using a top-down strategic view doesn't mean getting rid of your agencies, it just means they'll all be working to a single over-arching strategy, rather than just doing the best they can do in their niche. It means you get a coherent plan that can be delivered as usual through segmented email or segmented microsites, but is flexible enough to incorporate new channels (like social media) as they emerge.

All digital de-fragmentation takes is a little strategic thinking, but what it leads to can be revolutionary.

You should follow me on Twitter here.

Are advertising agencies protesting too much?

1714221 — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 22:56:00 GMT

Methinks all this talk of cancelled parties and an empty Croisette may turn out to be a case of agencies which doth protest too much.

In a year of mass redundancies, most have been keen to show that they are acting with sobriety and cutting back on the expense of jetting a whole load of people out to Cannes and keeping them fuelled with a continuous supply of drink, parties and, less importantly, food.

The only party I know of is the Massive Music "No Party" on Noga Beach on Wednesday night and it's true that, while our Cannes Week diaries at Campaign are usually rammed with invitations before June has begun, this year we have been quite concerned that we might actually have to buy dinner for ourselves at some point.

But I just wonder if there may be a rush on last minute flights to Nice later this week. All of a sudden, up will pop the chance to meet with a client or a prospect out here or - hope upon hope - the possibility of picking up a prize, and execs will find themselves supplied with an entirely plausible justification for a trip down to the Cote d'Azur after all.

And, yes, our diaries are now full to overflowing, with late invitations still coming in this week-end.

So, sitting in my credit-crunch bedroom tonight, having seen nothing yet of Cannes except the rain, I predict a quiet start to the week and a pretty packed finale. I hope I'm right.

The rainforest and the advertising industry

2460092 — Wed, 27 May 2009 10:13:00 GMT

I’ve had a week to digest the talking points of our Zeitgeist conference, where royals, bankers, business leaders, journalists and even an Amazonian tribal chief came together to discuss issues of the day. But one issue in particular stuck in my mind – sustainability. Sustainability was certainly the key theme as the Prince of Wales made a moving and humbling speech about the environment and technology, pleading that the Amazon be “treated like a human being.” But there were also lively debates about the future of the media industry, and indeed, the sustainability of the business models of traditional media. It was a chance for us all to think about the roles we play within the industry, how content producers manage and make money from content and how we sustain quality and valuable advertising output. It was also another chance for Google to understand the concerns of newspaper and TV owners, and ensure their thoughts are top of mind for us in helping them make money from their content on the web. From talking to agency leaders at the event, it’s clear media agencies will be fighting tooth and nail over any big accounts that come up for grabs over the coming weeks and months. The industry must be careful that the stiff competition doesn’t become a cut-throat exercise in cutting costs, inevitably leading to a downfall in the quality of advertising. Indeed quality and value for money is something all agencies and media owners need to ensure is sustainable when trying to encourage advertisers to invest in marketing in the downturn.

…And access for all

2460092 — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:00:00 GMT

As you may have read in a previous post, our house is currently a building site and we’re living in temporary accommodation. Although the flat is nice enough, the family and I are all starting to miss our creature comforts: my wife and I the garden and the Sky Plus HD box, the kids their trampoline. But we’re united in yearning for broadband which we’re all struggling to cope without.

My youngest daughter is a fan of the Bratz website (about dolls and accessories, for those of you without young girls), my son his Xbox live gaming & my eldest a constant stream of YouTube - let alone all their homework requirements which seem to demand internet access these days.

As well as for work, broadband access is vital for my late night binges on iTunes & paying the builders. We’ve experimented with 3G cards, but can’t seem to get a good enough reception out in the sticks, so the whole experience becomes frustrating.

We know that around 90 per cent of people who’ve just moved home would chose broadband over a microwave if they could only have one installed in the first month. How consumer behaviour has changed in the last few years. And I hope there are no doctors reading, but I read that 40 per cent of us would rather give up fresh fruit and veg than our broadband connection!

Whatever the industry’s thoughts on Digital Britain, we can applaud the decision to give as many people as possible access to broadband. Not only will it feed my families’ needs & obsessions but it’s great news for the UK’s agencies and advertisers as it expands the vibrant marketplace that the internet creates, as well as delivering consumers all the public service information they need.

Cannes does not fit this age of austerity

1225254 — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 08:15:00 GMT

Today the London Business School reports marketers 'must focus on consumers looking for bargains in a new era of austerity'. For agencies, austerity is truly biting hard. Waves of redundancies have generated a miserable atmosphere, and inevitably damaged morale. And lots of very good people gone. It's not just been a case of 'dead wood'.

In these straitened times, any overt displays of opulent spending or lavish entertaining are rightly frowned upon as being out of tune with the times. This is Gordon Brown's Britain.

Except for one very visible case. In June, agency heads will be jetting off for a week of thinly disguised hedonism in the Cannes sun. I'm sorry, but it all feels very nineties, if not eighties, to me and entirely inappropriate for 2009.

Forget about the awards themselves, let's assume all the Direct winners will be very worthy and fine examples of creative innovation, even if hardly any (as was the case last year) are from the UK. And I'm sure the presentations will be insightful and well attended.

No, think of the image being projected by all those jolly important people sipping cocktails outside the Carlton and cracking open the Dom Perignon aboard a private yacht, while back home their staff await the dreaded call from HR. Think what hay the Sun or Mail would make of it. Then think of the employees who have lost their jobs to pay for those c.£2,000 tickets (plus flights and accommodation). I can tell you what those employees will be thinking about it.

I wonder how much 'insight into austerity' people will find on the beach at Cannes?

It’s great up in the digital North

2460092 — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:56:00 GMT

I’ve recently come back from a couple of days in the north, where I had breakfast, lunch and dinner with most of our agency partners in that part of the world.

As ever, leaving the London smog and arriving in Manchester, I get a real buzz from the sense of community you get when talking to media agencies in the creative hubs of Leeds and Manchester - it offers something you don’t get in the capital. The industry really seems to pull together to present the north as a region of fantastic creativity and world-leading service in digital, while still retaining their competitive spirit. Perhaps it’s not fashionable to segment regions these days as the Internet has few geographical boundaries, but it’s something I’ve definitely observed.

Because of the heritage of direct response advertising, the North has adapted to the science of search marketing very well. Agencies there have taken ideas of best practice and shared goals and are often ahead of the game when it comes to their southern counterparts – a bit like their football team (and that’s coming from a Chelsea supporter). For example, many agencies in the north, such as Brilliant Media, Latitude and Mediavest, have set up teams to monitor user click paths and site usability, an area we see as integral to the success of search.

The challenge for the northern agencies, as I see it, is to take the great reputation they’ve built through search and apply that experience to the fast developing online video and interest based display market, keeping the London agencies on their toes. I’m looking forward to being invited back to the Manchester office this summer for a swift round of golf and to learn of more progress in this vibrant digital region so I can take the learnings back with me to London and spread the word.