The agency debate is raging on, with notable bloggers questioning agency quoting practices, briefless content development and how to go about hiring an agency.
Now, I’ve seen the issues from the inside as someone who’s worked at many different shops. And, now, as a supplier, I’m starting to see things from a whole other perspective. My view is shaped through my experience working with at least ten different shops over the years.
With this in mind, I give you my take:
1. Agencies are built around two functions: media and the studio
Sure, the showcase department for any agency is creative. Hands down, this is where an agency’s image is made â?? or broken. However, from a cash perspective, money is coming in through these two departments:
â?¢ The media department drives creative decisions. By function of the budget provided by the client, the media department allocates their resources based on generating GRPs and maximizing revenues. This department then tells the creative team what they need to produce. There’s little collaboration in the process.
Secondly, media teams are unfamiliar with the web, so they treat it as a dumping ground for interruption tactics.
They’re not interested in talking with people, they’re interested in shouting at them. In this regard, they’re a good two to three years behind the curve.
â?¢ The production department (studio) is the cash cow of many agencies. In some cases, they’re set up as a separate business and bill the agency as a supplier. Hours are accumulated as every job gets pushed through the studio, the agency bills themselves and then they mark up the charges. The client, of course, gets the short end of the stick, having to pay a lot more than if only one real supplier was involved.
2. The art of strategy is dead
More and more, you see agencies turning into glorified order desks. Account Management teams have been replaced with Account Servicing teams. (See the subtle, yet notable, difference?) With this focus on getting jobs in and turning them out, there’s little, if any, emphasis placed on strategic thinking, strategic development or long-term planning of any kind.
The fallout from this is that good young talent is never being harnessed. There’s little leadership training, so developing new strategic minds just isn’t happening. Research, writing, and briefing has been replaced by note taking, phone jockeying and email shuffling.
This is possibly the greatest shame of the industry right now. And it’s a problem that naturally leads to another…
3. Rudderless creative
I’ve written about this before, but I believe that The Kaiser did a much better job. Without a well thought out creative brief, there’s no way that the creative can hit its mark.
In a nutshell:
- No brief, no direction
- No direction, the “anything goes” mindset creeps in
- “Anything goes”, leads to “We can win awards”
- “We can win awards”, leads to agency-serving thinking
Your marketing efforts are supposed to sell goods. Period. Without a (good) brief â?? objectives, key message, audience profiles and all â?? you stand little chance of achieving a desired result.
â?¢
As agencies continue down this path, scrambling to catch up to their digital, design or social media counterparts, where will it all lead?
How do you see the agency problem?
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December 14th, 2007 at 12:07 am
I agree that so many agencies are behind the times, especially on the media planning end. The mega-agencies seem to be especially slow. They talk a good game, but unless you are a multi-hundred million dollar client, you may not get top service.
Some of the independents — small and mid-size — have tried to fill the gap, providing good thinking and good service. They seem to be few and far between, though.
December 14th, 2007 at 4:45 am
I think point 3 is quite right, although I would say that a small number of agency staff are capable of thinking wider and still producing good work without a brief. I imagine (sadly) that they are in the minority though.
As for the dumping ground idea, thats why many agencies just see the net as a viral playground for ideas they can’t put on tv. Instead of a vibrant and wide ranging media with near infinite ossibilities.
December 14th, 2007 at 8:00 am
David: I think that’s exactly it, they talk a good game, but they have little real understanding of what’s really going on online.
Rob: Being able to think wider and produce good work is one thing, making that work stick to real objectives is quite another. I have no doubt that many creative people are capable of producing memorable work, what I do doubt, though, is their ability to attach that work to stated objectives â?? particularly when the objectives haven’t been stated!
December 14th, 2007 at 8:16 am
Well thats the issue really. Are the combination of creative/planner/manager able to identify objectives through individual analysis rather than being hoisted a specific objective?
They would have to be extremely good, not only to identify objectives, but to persuade the client that they were talented enough to be left with the brand in their hands (and brains…)!
Or if this takes off, would the groupingshave to change? Would the strategy of a planner and the client knowledge of the manager/suit become more important?
Its a fascinating debate though.
December 16th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
As an independent practitioner, I am able to KNOW my clients and their operations. I make it a point to be on site on a regular basis, so much so that I can answer customer questions. Agencies typically do not. I took over my largest client from a major agency in Cleveland and as I reviewed their work, it was evident to me that they didn’t take the time to truly KNOW the client and get all the facts straight. They knew “surface” details. Their focus was primarily on media coverage and that was it. While that is certainly important (!) there is more to it. I am able to provide 10x the level of service and attention to detail and I charge 1/10 the retainer.
December 17th, 2007 at 8:16 am
Rob: Is it a question of “could” or “should”? I think that these objectives should be coming from the client with the collaboration of the agency. The client comes to the agency with what they what to accomplish and how they would like to see it measured and the client packages the objective in messageable terms for the creative work to be done.
And I think Nancy is definitely onto something. There is a big difference between working on an account and knowing your client. Many of the agencies I worked at fell victim to exactly what Nancy describes, we knew the “surface details” but not much more.
My question is this: is this only the agency’s fault or is it possible that in some cases, the client doesn’t share enough (or want to).
Either way, there’s a great dysfunction at work here. What do you guys think?
December 19th, 2007 at 10:25 am
Hello, Markie.
I agree with most of what is written here. However, as I work in a smaller agency we actually DO get to know our client and their issues, and we think strategically. But I don’t know that the points made about traditional agencies is any different in new media agencies. In fact, my experience that it’s even more “let’s throw it against the wall and see if it sticks.”
I’ve talked and met many New Media Mavens who can talk about the web but have no understanding about strategy or objectives. In fact, the first thing out of their mouths is “let’s do a youtube thing” or “let’s create a banner.”
I know it’s in your best interests to disparage old school agencies on this blog, but I have yet to see the Web 2.0 world as a panacea for all the ills of the old world.
It’s important. It’s the future. It can do things old school advertising can’t. But I still believe both have to work together and that the new world has a lot of evolving to do to become even half as exciting as really, really good advertising is.
December 19th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
To wit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhzaIQOtCSs&feature=related>
An internet company wishes to express how relevant it is to the masses. So it creates a very clever spot featuring web heroes and places it on…get this…TELEVISION.
The TELEVISION spot is then found on YOU TUBE and sent to people throughout the world.
See? We CAN all get along.
March 3rd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
[…] This may be a big revelation to some, not so big to others, but it had always been a suspicion of mine. Since the summer of 2005, when I became a student of social media, everything I believed has been confirmed. And now Iâ??m finally doing something about it. (for more on Mark’s perspectives on this point, see this post). […]