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What's NextTHE FUTURE OF THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY
W W W . S W Y S T U N C O M M U N I C A T I O N S . C O M
ALL ADVERTISING ADVERTISES ADVERTISING
WHAT THE HECK IS ADVERTISING?
EVERYONE WANTS IN
THE PLAYERS
WHAT DO BRANDS THINK?
THE FUTURE BELONGS TO.. .
WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?
THE LAST WORD(S)
SWYSTUN COMMUNICATIONS
what's next
SWYSTUN COMMUNICATIONS
EVERY BUSINESS NEEDS A BRAND
EVERY BRAND NEEDS A STORY
MAKE YOURS A BESTSELLER
contact us
416.471.4655
www.swystuncommunications.com
Jeff Swystun
all advertising advertises advertising
What do you think of when you hear, "the advertising industry"? Is it the embellished glamour of the
Mad Men era or do you see logos and hear jingles. More abstractly, you may imagine a long
assembly line spitting out ever more advertisements adding to the communication clutter in our lives.
One of the most prescient thinkers on media and marketing was Professor Marshall McLuhan. It is
argued he predicted the rise of the Internet and the advent of social media decades in advance.
McLuhan was the fellow who said, "The media is the message." I was amazed to learn on a visit to
Facebook headquarters that the professor's books are required reading for staff.
One of his lessor known quotes is a doozy, "All advertising advertises advertising." You could
spend a lengthy dinner party unpacking the meaning and intent of those words. The quote
caustically equates ubiquity with effectiveness while suggesting that the industry that produces ads
is a self-perpetuating machine.
So where is that machine headed? What is the future of the ad industry?
To be clear, I am not a futurist. I am more of a creative historian whose thesis was arrived at by
looking to the past and extrapolating out. This means there is plenty of speculation with confusing
variables known and unknown. However, the thesis is simple, if you plan to play in advertising, you
cannot waiver or be vague, you have to pick a lane. Stick with me. All will become clear.
-1-
What the
heck is
advertising?McLuhan's quote has an underlying
assumption. Namely, that advertising
works. After all it has been around for
centuries and is a humungous industry.
Forrester projects that global
advertising spending will amount to
over US$550 billion in 2018.
Advertising is ubiquitous. It is
everywhere from offers on our phones
to the logos on our clothing to the
billboards on the roadside. Advertising
is no longer pop culture, it is culture.
This took root well over a century ago.
Author Norman Douglas noted it in
1917, "You can tell the values of a nation
by its advertisements." Ads not only
promote products and services, they
detail and document our lives and
history.
This is strange given how it has
suffered from criticism. In the early
days, even business questioned the
value of advertising. It was viewed as
unnecessary and secondary, rather
than a primary function like
manufacturing or agriculture. It has
also been equated to hucksterism and
called misleading, if not, outright
dishonest.
Advertising spending will amount
to over US$550 billion in 2018. -2-
A PATINA OF
SINCERITY, SCIENCE
AND PROGRESS.
Advertising started as a profession to
create awareness and provide information
so people could make better decisions.
According to Jackson Lears in his book,
Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of
Advertising in America, the profession set
out to give everything a "patina of
sincerity, science and progress."
Now the profession has achieved the
opposite of what is intended to do. It drives
people nuts. Complaints range from
unwelcome to intrusive, to worse. Nielsen
has been tracking people's trust in
advertising for years and it declines study
after study.
This is not all the advertising profession's
fault. According to Michael Schudsen's Advertising, The Uneasy Persuasion, there
were just 900 branded items in 1928. By
1946, this had grown to 3,000.
Try counting the products, services and
offers available today. We can't point the
finger at advertising alone. We live in a
world of rampant, nearly unbridled
consumerism.
It is if we have taken Oscar Wilde to heart,
"Anyone who lives within their means
suffers from a lack of imagination." It is a
world of abundance where more is more.
Unfortunately, we have applied that same
thinking to advertising.
We can't point the finger
at advertising alone. We
live in a world of rampant,
nearly unbridled
consumerism.
-4-
From the outside, the advertising
industry has always looked like a
cool club with rich, successful and
influential members. There has
been a relatively low barrier-to-
entry in the ad game. New
agencies start in large number and
with frequency year after year.
The business has long been
dominated by "traditional" players.
For simplicity, think of them as the
Madison Avenue set but also
include that twelve-person shop in
Portland or Hamburg who does up
a website, print ad, social media
campaign, or YouTube spot.
The publication, AdWeek has
stated, "The traditional agency is
antiquated because traditional
advertising is antiquated." However,
traditional means not only
traditional advertising as an output
but a traditional business model.
How an agency gets compensated
is a big driver for how it behaves,
thrives, and positions itself. The
compensation model, in turn,
dictates how the agency will be
staffed, how it operates, and what it
ultimately delivers.
There has been very little
differentiation among traditional
advertising agencies. A
longstanding joke in the profession
is how poorly agencies brand
themselves. Further, many have
asked through the years, that if
advertising is so effective why don't
advertising agencies advertise?
The fact is, they do. There is an over-
emphasis on the value of award
shows to demonstrate an agency's
abilities. As well, agencies rely on
press releases concerning new
business wins and talent
recruitment. Agencies use public
relations as the primary driver of
awareness. None of that is wrong
tactically, it just reveals an alarming
gap in truly articulating their
strategic difference.
HOW AN AGENCY GETS
COMPENSATED IS A BIG
DRIVER FOR HOW IT
BEHAVES.
Everyone
wants in
-5-
It took many decades but finally this was noted. In
the last ten years, brands have questioned the
value they receive from advertising agencies. And
not just anecdotally. They demand to look under
the hood. They match cost to performance,
promise to proof and have found an unacceptable
gap.
This gave rise to alternatives to traditional
advertising agencies. Now the "advertising
industry" has allowed business consultancies,
technology players, and in-house marketing
organizations to take hold. No longer is it agency
versus agency. The field has expanded, the options
greater, the promises bigger, and clarity vaguer.
Differentiation is tough among agencies because, at the end of the day, what do they truly
have that is different?
Precious few agencies employ taglines though they
recommend them to clients. At one point, BBDO
extolled, "The work, the work, the work" in its
communications. The point being, let the creativity
we deliver to clients speak for itself. Smart, yet
just shy of the mark. It is the results the work
delivers, not the work itself.
Differentiation is tough among agencies because,
at the end of the day, what do they truly have that
is different? Agencies of all sizes and lineage can
claim to have strong talent, proprietary processes
(that are actually shockingly common), pieces of
cool work, depth in certain verticals, etc. Sadly, an
industry that is premised on differentiation comes
across as a commodity offer.
-6-
Traditional Advertising Agencies
THE PLAYERS
The Drum magazine called 2017, "an
annus horribilis" for the traditional
advertising holding companies. These
are the handful of large companies that
own so many advertising and marketing
agencies around the world. They were
referring not only to financial
performance but to a lack of strategic
direction to address the expanding
universe of players.
Digiday piled on, "In 2017, WPP, the
bellwether of the ad industry, had its
worst year for revenue growth since
2009, as the agency network wrestled
with issues that have impacted every
major network to some degree."
Bloomberg noted on March 13, 2018,
"WPP has lost almost a third of its market
value over the past 12 months, with
advertising industry headwinds taking a
smaller toll on Publicis Groupe SA and
Omnicom Group Inc."
N O M A D I C | 2 4
An expanding
universe of
players.-7-
Now it is efficiency and effectiveness instead of a three- martini lunch.
To be sure, holding companies and
independent agencies are not
entirely standing still but they are
up against it. Ogilvy has
restructured their entire business
approach in order to build a more
client-centric model. Still, in
positioning against consultancies,
they do not have the same
business strategy resources and
relationships at the right levels
within clients. In short, clients do
not view traditional agencies as
strategic or "full-service". They are
not seen as problem-solvers, they
create ad campaigns.
To combat consultancies, agencies
must provide enterprise value, get
leaner and more cost-effective, and
definitely become more
transparent. WPP has begun
building and buying technology
infrastructure and businesses to
integrate their digital marketing
capabilities. Meanwhile, the entire
industry is under scrutiny for value-
for-money.
Now it is efficiency and
effectiveness instead of a three-
martini lunch. Flexibility and speed
over cozy relationships. That is why
four consultancies have already
cracked Ad Age's ranking of the 10
largest agency companies in the
world. With combined revenue of
$13.2bn, the marketing units of
Accenture, PwC, IBM and Deloitte
rank just below WPP, Omnicom,
Publicis Groupe, Interpublic and
Dentsu.
AGENCIES ARE
NOT SEEN AS
PROBLEM-
SOLVERS,
THEY CREATE AD
CAMPAIGNS. -9-
ConsultanciesTHE PLAYERS
Andrea Goeldi, Chief Technology
Officer of Pixability, nailed it in an article
in The Drum, when he said, "Traditionally,
Accenture, IBM and other consultancies
have been system integrators and
technical infrastructure companies. They
implement large scale IT solutions and
operate data centers for corporations -
about as far from advertising creativity
as a company can get. But as their core
services expanded - and there was a
clear need from the market - they
bridged into marketing-related activities,
such as building interactive and e-
commerce websites."
The point to emphasize is, "there was a
clear need from the market". Once
again, brand were looking for real help
and consultancies saw opportunity.
Websites may have been the start but
now consultancies are "consolidating
their role in marketing and design, with
the CMO budget being the last
untapped pot of money. This shift is
predominantly driven at the CEO or
CFO level, while ad agencies typically
connect with CMOs at brands."
N O M A D I C | 2 4 -10-
In 2017, Accenture Interactive acquired ten agencies.
THE EAR OF THE C-SUITE
Consultancies have the ear of the entire C-Suite. They have license
to run around the entire company and are finding pain points with
a brand's marketing strategy. Agencies do not have that same
license or bandwidth.
Consultancies know where the money is. Consider Digiday's
interview with a consulting executive. The publication does a series
that grants the interviewee anonymity:
"We recently did some consulting for the CMO of a brand that's
spending nearly $20 million across three different consultants on
various projects. I pointed out that was more than they spend with
most of their agencies, and they said, "You're right, but none of them
[the consulting firms] are coming out of my budgets because those
interactions between the CMO and the consulting firms are usually
being facilitated by the CEO and CFO." You might think the
marketing budget is substantial, but the fact is that every part of
that budget is already committed to executing the marketing plan.
The big-ticket items like the digital transformation or the customer-
centric technology implementation comes out of the CEO and CIO
budget for a long time before it ever comes from the CMO."
N O M A D I C | 2 4-12-
Another threat to traditional agencies is the deeper pockets of consultancies. They are are quickly
building and buying capabilities. In 2017, Accenture Interactive acquired ten agencies. That same
year, Fiat Chrysler appointed them global agency of record for Maserati. In 2018, Disney selected
Accenture Interactive as a core partner on their business and on their brand, "to innovate on the
future of entertainment experiences."
McDonald's is tapping Cap Gemini "to accelerate digital technology innovation and transform the
restaurant experience for customers." And Accenture Interactive may truly blessed given The
Vatican' communications secretariat recently appointed the consultancy to unify its
communications strategy under a new digital entity: Vatican News.
A WARC survey found that brands were more likely to agree that management consultancies are
better placed than agencies to help them achieve enterprise strategy objectives and digital
transformation. A study from the Society of Digital Agencies revealed that 77% of client-side
marketers reported being inclined to working with a consultancy, almost double the share from the
previous year. Consultancies are joining creative, data and technology end to end and say that
they're ready to be a true partner to brands on marketing and advertising.
-13-
Big TechTHE PLAYERS
There is a new word in the world of
advertising: duopoly. That amazing duo
is, of course, Google and Facebook.
Jason Kint, CEO at Digital Content Next,
analyzed data from eMarketer and
others, to show that the two giants now
own between 60% and 70% digital
advertising market share in the U.S.
Google dominates paid search,
Facebook holds sway over display
advertising.
In the fourth quarter of 2017, RBC
Capital Markets Analyst Mark Mahaney
reported, "Google's organic advertising
revenue growth has averaged 20% for
31 straight quarters and grew 22% in
Q3:17." Adweek reports that, "Mobile
and digital advertising continue to soar,
90 percent of this growth is going to
these two companies alone."
What business regardless of industry
wouldn't want those numbers?
N O M A D I C | 2 4 -14-
Increasingly, brands like Heineken, Adidas and L'Oréal are working directly with the duopoly. They see no
need for an expensive middleman that slows down the process. This has been sped along by what
BusinessInsider calls, "brands born with the internet" that "don't have decades of history running massive
national television and magazine campaigns shepherded by traditional ad agencies. They don't rely on
selling their goods at Walmart or Walgreens or the local car dealer. Instead, they have direct relationships
with customers and live and die on data."
Albert Brea of Forbes points out another player, "Brands will continue to pay to play on social platforms.
The digital giants will own the data, the relationship and the rules of the games. Amazon, who owns the
last mile, might become the biggest winner in this game."
Let me digress for a moment. Amazon reminds me of a
giant railroad or Bell in the 1970's. They are so large, I
could see the government forcing a break up of the
company. Spencer Soper and Mark Bergen at
BloombergTechnology wrote, "Amazon has an
advertising platform no other company can match: a
web store selling hundreds of millions of products
combined with a streaming entertainment service and a
trove of data about customer preferences. Amazon
attracts 180 million U.S. visitors each month-all or most
with shopping on their mind. And as more people shop
on smartphones, they're skipping search engines like
Google for Amazon's mobile app."
AMAZON HAS
AN ADVERTISING
PLATFORM NO
OTHER
COMPANY CAN
MATCH.
-15-
In-HouseTHE PLAYERS
Agencies are not only battling
consultancies and the ever-expanding
offers from technology companies, but
also a growing tendency for brands to
expand their own in-house capabilities. I
have witnessed such cycles through the
years but now see this as a more
permanent and committed approach.
A SoDA study released in 2017, found
that 6 in 10 agencies reported that the
in-sourcing of marketing work is having
an impact on their business. Meanwhile
the ANA found that 35% of advertisers
have cut the role of external agencies as
a result of their expansion of in-house
capabilities. Further, a Digiday study
found that 56% of brands plan to handle
more of their marketing internally in
2018.
All of this adds up to greater difficulties
for agencies. RSW/US revealed that
34% of agencies found it harder to
obtain new business this year than last.
That was almost twice the share (19%)
who found it easier to obtain new
business this year.
N O M A D I C | 2 4 -16-
THIS IS NO LONGER AUGMENTATION, IT IS REPLACEMENT OF TRADITIONAL AGENCIES.
The case for internal shops is mostly cost savings. The second is speed. Brands are
thinking about conversations not campaigns. Many Chief Marketing Officers do not have
time for the briefing process and inevitable back and forth. They are under pressure to
deliver and can only fire their agency so many times before they themselves are on the
chopping block.
Yet, it goes further than just cost and time savings. Some brands want specific expertise
in-house. In fact, yoghurt giant, Chobani, hired its own creative director. This is no longer
augmentation, it is replacement of traditional agencies.
N O M A D I C | 2 4-17-
WHAT DO
BRANDS
THINK?
This is the multi-billion-dollar question and it is asked all
too rarely. It is not only what clients think, it is what they
want and need. Traditional agencies have taken a 'no
news is good news' posture. They have been fearful to
rock the boat. Meanwhile, the water is evaporating.
Earlier this year, Bob Bailey wrote in the MediaPost,
"Simply put, the transformation is happening now
because clients are seeing greater value in each distinct
approach. Never has there been more methodologies
for reaching consumers, more content to consider, more
analytics for measuring success. They're under pressure
to deliver results faster than ever."
Take the case of both P&G and Unilever.
Make no mistake, every agency in the world
pops champagne the first time they win a
piece of business from either of these
consumer product giants. Increasingly there
is less champagne. In 2017, P&G cut US$140
million of their digital advertising spend.
Think about that…their digital ad spend, not
traditional. The traditional advertising
industry has it stuck in their collective heads
that digital will save them. That is looking
less the case.
-18-
What brands want is what they have always wanted but the industry failed to deliver. They want top and bottom line results. For a time, brands played along with their agencies because there was little-to-no alternative. During that time the agencies positioned themselvesas indispensable, hired rock star creatives (a model that does not scale and actually causes cat-fighting), and entered award shows. Not much of this activity was tied to performance, mostly it suggested they suffered from an inferiority complex.
If agencies do not change, history may not treat them kindly. In time, ad agencies may be viewed as a management fad with an incredibly long run. Mark Pritchard, Chief Brand Officer, P&G, has been sending warning to the advertising industry, "We bombard consumers with thousands of ads a day, subject them to endless ad load times, interrupt their screens with popups and overpopulate their screens and feeds. We're awfully busy, but all of this activity is not breaking through the clutter. It's just creating more noise."
Pritchard goes further and has attacked long standing tradition, "As clients, we add complexity with what our agencies call the 'buddy system' expecting agency client services people to pair up with each of our people to 'service the relationship.' This leads to spending way too much energy on conference calls, meetings and offsites, traveling to see each other, and wasting time with conference reports and PowerPoint presentations, dimming and ultimately extinguishing creativity."
His competitor over at Unilever agrees. Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Keith Weed is also keen on eliminating waste at agencies, "We should get the best price for our consumers. And if that means rooting out inefficiencies in someone else's business, I will do it." That sounds very threatening to agencies and has forced them to become more transparent about the work and billings.
I love how the industry responded, the World Federation of Advertisers named Weed, Global Marketer of the Year. This was after he cut 30% of the ads Unilever has historically run while halving 1,500 of the 3,000 agencies the company works with.
These cuts are not symbolic, they are bottom-line decisions. P&G's Chief Financial Officer, Jon Moeller, has said that despite slashing the number of agencies it works with and saving US$750m, it was seeking a further US$400m by reducing its agency roster by another 50%. Incredibly, P&G improved cash flow by over US$400m simply by changing agency payment terms.
-19-
THE FUTURE
BELONGS TO.. .Let me answer this quickly and succinctly, the future of the advertising industry belongs to those that pick a lane. There no longer can be waffling or taking a 'wait-and-see' attitude. Anyone who wishes to compete and thrive in the space has to proclaim a territory and a specialism. Generic, middle-of-the road strategies will lead to a short shelf-life.
There is no shortage of opinion on this topic. In researching this paper, I read over sixty relevant articles. They ranged from the vague to the incredibly specific. Some pundits say that Facebook and other tech companies are going to win the war because personalization solves the interruption problem. Let's table that idea for a moment.
Others point to "full-service digital and data-driven agencies". These folks are seen to prevail because they marry data with creativity and know how to run campaigns with minimal ad wastage. There are those that say Accenture has already perfected the right model with its "customer experience agency" that arguably, Ogilvy is mirroring.
Before one can arrive at any model, I enjoy the advice from Stephen Foster, former editor of Marketing Week and London Evening Standard advertising columnist. He provides the best sorting device to help with this problem, "Essentially agencies survive if they can do something the client can't - or do it better or more cheaply or both. And, that's it."
So, what are those things?
I have consulted to over forty professional services firms. Whether it be agencies or consultancies or law firms or accounting firms. At the core of any such businesses is objectivity. Jordan Bitterman, Chief Marketing Officer at the Weather Company said, "we have moved away from retainer relationships. They are predicated on a predictable future." Yet, marketers still want an outsider's perspective. Bitterman says, "Strategy and ideas never go out of vogue."
-20-
The next thing is an evolution in how agencies marry strategy and creative. Leave data out of it for now. Data provides information which provides insight that, in turn, propels strategy and creativity. Data is an input, never the endgame.
Agencies should be linking strategy and creative as part of their DNA. So, this notion itself, does not differentiate. It is how they do it objectively that will distance themselves from in-house creative and the tech players. Creative can still marginalize consultancies in the near term.
The biggest bugaboo facing ad agencies is the perception and reality that they are slow and a growing impediment. Also, that they are order-takers so less strategic and proactive. Consultancies are always on the lookout for the next opportunity to help (and sell services) to a client. Agencies get a gig and the high of the win quickly dissipates. That loss of enthusiasm has always been an issue within agencies. Agencies need to speed- up, don't hold anyone up, and get way better at anticipating.
-21-
It has been said that a good Chief Marketing Officer is one that represents the voice of the customer. This is what the ad agency should be within a client's business. Sure, their job is to ultimately make aware and compel consumers to buy but the best way to do that is to know the customer better than they know themselves. This means the agency brings incredible insights to the client, stuff they do not know. This sharpens strategy and creative.
For too long, the historic and cozy relationship between brand and agency has been weirdly adversarial towards consumers. Agencies must now emphasize their objectivity while deepening their knowledge of the client's customers. While most agencies would make claim to this, they are not doing it to the extent required. This would be truly different ifexecuted properly.
Agencies cannot wait or assume there will always be a
seat at the table.
My point is, objectivity, strategy married with creative, speed, and the voice of the customer are both table- stakes but when offered together are a unique and powerful proposition. Yet, this list may be out of reach of just one type of business. Patrick Harris, Facebook's Head of Agency Partnerships, has said evolving client demand, "is forcing, in many instances, consulting firms, agencies and companies all coming to the tableat the same time" to ensure such clients derive maximum value from their partners. We sit in more rooms today where you have a consulting firm, you have an agency and you have us sitting at the table because clients are forcing it. There's a role for all of these partners to play."
This triad is an interesting notion. It suggests collaboration and implies each entity has unique value. Time will tell if this will take hold. I believe agencies cannot wait or assume there will always be a seat at the table.
-22-
The bottom-line is the industry has
not been delivering for some time.
The space was wrenched open to
new players because brands got
tired of waiting to be asked by
traditional agencies about their
wants and needs. This led brands to
question agency performance and
to look elsewhere for ways to
improve marketing and grow the
top-line.
That answer may not be advertising.
Publicis Groupe's Rishad
Tobaccowala has the title, Chief
Growth Officer. At a conference in
February, 2018 he pronounced that
advertising will decline 20% to 30%"
over the next five years, "We will
increasingly have less and less
advertising." That begs the question,
how do agencies replace that
missing 30%?
In the face of that question, agencies
have given the appearance of
complacency, fear, inertia and
confusion. Giles Hedger, CEO, M&C
Saatchi, makes the point bluntly, "It's
been fashionable to inhabit the grey
space this past decade. It's even
been exciting. Ambiguity has been
reframed as a positive state of
fluidity - a high integrity, future-
ready limbo. But limbo is now a
luxury that few agencies can afford,
and a welcome dose of black and
white will need to return to agency
leadership in 2018. It's time to place
your bets."
What does all this mean?
-23-
30advertising will
decline 20% to
30% over the next
five years
At the AdWeek conference last year, The&Partnership's North
American CEO Andrew Bailey spoke at an event titled, Is the
Agency of the Future Still an Agency? He did not endear himself
to the room when he said, "The agencies in this room today will
be lucky to be around in five years, much less 10, unless they
radically transform the way they come to market."
Nick Phelps writing in AdWeek makes a macro and insightful
observation, "It's consumers and culture that are driving the
macro changes affecting our industry. As culture moves faster
and faster and consumers grow ever more empowered and
demanding, brands know they need to keep up. And perhaps
the traditional agency model just can't."
When I consider picking a lane and doing something the client
can't, I arrive at three models worthy of consideration.
Pick a lane. Pick a model.
-25-
M O D E L 1 : C R E A T I V I T Y B Y T H E N U M B E R S
I T I S N O T A B O U T D A T A ,
I T I S A B O U T R E S U L T S
Pendulums swing. It's what they do. Historically, agencies have hung their hats on creativity. Then we got a whole lot of digital, social media, tech and data. Clients salivated at the prospect of proving what marketing and advertising worked (and holding their agencies accountable).
Suddenly, it was about Big Data. That made me laugh. I have been advising companies on marketing for nearly three decades. I began in consulting with Deloitte and PW. Even at that time, clients were overwhelmed in data. The more the inputs; the more contradictions, hypotheses, debate, and confusion.
Do not get me wrong. I like data. Agencies need data. Brands needs data. These days even the consumer is looking at data in order to substantiatethe veracity of agency and brand claims. But is not about data, it is about results.
A viable agency model is one that artfully mixes creativity and analysis. Currently, creativity remains the differentiator for agencies versus consultancies and the tech companies.This is even conceded by Joydeep Bhattacharya, an Accenture Interactive managing director, "Creativity in the traditional sense will be even more important as the arena for winning hearts and minds of consumers becomes even more competitive and crowded." The implication is an agency must be creativity-led and data supported. .
-26-
M O D E L 2 : T E C H N O L O G Y H U M A N E L Y A P P L I E DU N T A N G L E C O N S U M E R S F R O M
W I R E S A N D W I R E L E S S
Privacy and annoyance. That is what the consumer thinks about in the age of smart devices and personal information. Meanwhile, brands and technology companies appear to show little regard or empathy for people andhuman behavior.
Marketers have to break the addiction to shiny new toys. Devices and analytics must do right by consumers. That means making people's lives easier and more enjoyable. It doesn't mean bombardment or an "always-on" culture. The best marketing mirrors human behavior that already exists.
This is big stuff. It seeps far wider than the advertising industry. It is a societal issue. However, there is an amazing opportunity for an agency to be this, "technology humanely applied" business. One that honestly works on behalf of consumers to help them make better decisions without entangling their lives in wires and wireless. However, this position easily could be claimed by consultancies and big tech if traditional agencies don't bust a move.
-27-
M O D E L 3 : E N T E R T A I N I N G N O N F I C T I O N S T O R Y T E L L I N GW E A R E A L L S T O R Y T E L L I N G
C R E A T U R E S
During her tenure as GE's Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer, Beth Comstock proclaimed, "Nothing will take the place of great storytelling." There is a big scrap within the advertising industry over the very notion of "storytelling". When most people hear that word, they think of novels, Netflix and, perhaps, nonsense.
Marketing and advertising exist to provide information for people to base better purchase decisions. I firmly believe that. Storytelling in advertising works because we are all storytelling creatures. We like characters, plot, emotion, and resolution. Unfortunately, storytelling in advertising has become synonymous with hoodwinking, cajoling and, sadly, fooling people.
That is because the stories are fiction. If you haven't noticed, we have crossed to a new dimension and that is entertaining nonfiction storytelling. People still want to disappear into a brand story but they want to know the product will work, is backed by the brand, and that it earns them a bit of cache beyond functional benefits.
-28-
The industry is being disrupted. The status quo has lost its status.
The last
word(s).I consult to agencies on their business and
brand strategies. The advice I provide
upfront is to take control of the agenda or
someone else will. This usually gets head
nods but little else. Then I tell them, your
industry is being disrupted. The status quo
has lost its status. Your situation is
analogous to Uber and AirBnB. That earns
serious faces but little movement.
It is a serious time for agencies. The time
for study and debate is gone. It is time to
pick a lane and stake a claim. New players
will emerge. Agency leaders able to
influence the trajectory of their company's
growth will be the ones who survive.
One last story. At the AdWeek conference
in New York last year, one topic was,
Advertising Needs a Rebrand. Advertising
and marketing was invented to help people
need and want something. Now advertising
agencies must convince brands that the
agency itself is needed. This requires far
more than a rebrand.
One last bit of advice. Advertising that
leverages emotion, communicates
authenticity, substantiates value, and is
premised on the utility and joy a thing
brings, is best positioned to work. So, pick a
lane and build your agency positioning
around such a proposition and you will
succeed. You have way more to lose if you
don't.
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What's NextTHE FUTURE OF THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY
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