by Adrian Hewlett (@adrianhewlett) It’s time to stop talking about the death of traditional communications, and focus instead on the evolution of client’s needs.
Yes, it has been a tough year for advertising, and advertising agencies. A tougher decade. Possibly the toughest in recent history as we’ve struggled to adapt to a world that is evolving and changing at an ever-faster pace. Budgets are down, margins are tight, the industry is heavily overtraded and the bubble created by the digital world — which for a couple of years, at least, has propped up many a traditional agency — is about to burst. Okay, maybe it won’t burst, but those who have benefitted from first-mover advantage will find that the competition has now caught up.
You’d be surprised
Yet, if you stop for just a second and look over your shoulder (or perhaps, rather, under that all-pervasive line), you might be surprised to find a whole sector of the communications industry that isn’t only surviving amid all this tumult but thriving.
Specialist agencies, operating in fields as diverse as content provision, live activations, shopper marketing, trade marketing, loyalty, CRM and data management, are definitely on the up and up; and so-called traditional agencies would do well to take note.
In a world in which consumers are exposed to upwards of 5 000 commercial messages EVERY DAY, so-called ‘traditional advertising’ simply isn’t cutting it. Which is not to say that it should be cut out —rather, that marketers need to incorporate other, less-traditional means of attracting consumer attention.
The way forward
It is my belief that herein lies the way forward for the advertising world. The agency of the future must possess the ability to offer clients not only world-class branding solutions, communicated via ground-breaking creative flair, but also the means to support each and every campaign with a variety of specialist marketing solutions. The aim must be to provide a solve that goes beyond simple communications and messaging by creatively delving into the mechanics and specialisation niches that sell more of the brand, for less investment.
There are some — very large — agencies that have managed to get this right by incorporating a variety of these specialist services under one roof. Yet it is fair to say that the vast majority of these specialists are currently housed within specialist business units or consultancies, operating entirely independently of traditional agencies. This means that marketing departments across the client spectrum are dealing with a multitude of different ‘service providers’ — not only costing clients more in terms of financial commitment but time commitment, too.
It’s time to bring it all together. Because it makes sense for agencies — and clients — to benefit from streamlined costs, and even more sense for marketers to work with one trusted partner who can orchestrate a broad spectrum of work that drives KPIs across a variety of pillars.
Less about advertising, more about marketing solutions
I believe that agencies of the future should be less about advertising, and more about marketing solutions; not specialising in the provision of creative campaigns but rather orchestrating brand messaging across any and all imaginable channels to the ultimate benefit of the client.
If agencies get this right, they will continue to command the respect of their clients and will grow as any innovative and progressive business should. If they don’t, they will lose relevance and with that, contracts.
Adrian Hewlett (@adrianhewlett) is CEO of Publicis Machine, which is represented in both Johannesburg and Cape Town and features additional talent across five specialist pillars: Narrative (content marketing), Incentiv (loyalty and rewards), Answered (research), Moon Walk (public relations), and Nurun (technology specialist).
“Motive” is a by-invitation-only column on MarkLives.com. Contributors are picked by the editors but generally don’t form part of our regular columnist lineup, unless the topic is off-column.
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