A Few Remedies to Avoid becoming a Commodity

So my last post was on how ad agencies are in the commodity business. I’m not sure how to fix the dinosaur Y&R’s, DDB’s and Leo Burnett’s of the world. I suppose the best course for them is a continued slide into irrelevance (along with the holding companies) so that something new and great can be built out of their ashes.

But as promised, here are a few things I would do if I was starting an agency or running a small- to mid-size one:

1. Find a niche. Be the best at online community-building or the only place to call for luxury goods marketing. If you are charged with a crime you don’t want a jack-of-all-trades lawyer. You want the best criminal trial lawyer you can get. If I am running a new museum, I want the expert in museum marketing and if I’m doing search marketing I want someone who knows that space as good or better than anyone else (in this case a small agency, Overdrive, in Boston). This means not pitching any piece of business that comes along. In order to stand for something you have to make choices.

2. Talk to your customers and your non-customers. How do they honestly view you? What you do. How you do it. How you communicate it. I don’t recall a single time anyone at the ad agency I worked at asked current clients or non-clients regularly to provide an honest assessment of the agency and I was never asked by my agencies how I viewed them. You can’t change or improve if you don’t know what your target audience thinks. What’s the first thing agencies recommend when taking on new business? Talk to the client’s target audience.

3. Go strong or don't go at all. If you’re going to truly be media-neutral then make sure you hire and structure yourself accordingly. Don’t hire one direct mail expert and say you offer direct mail expertise. Did you hire production people that know the intricacies of it? Data mining experts? DM copywriters? Are your departments structured to reflect neutrality or are the deck chairs just rearranged on your Titanic.

4. Focus on business results. Hold yourself accountable. Make sure everything you do is tied to results. If the client is being vague, demand clear objectives and how they'll be measured because it protects you and them. If not, don't be surprised when regime change includes you. The point that Morris Hite's quote gets to is that advertising doesn’t exist to drive awareness or win awards.

5. Don’t blame the client for “not letting you.” If you have the greatest idea and it ties back to objectives and business results, then it’s your duty to convince them. If afterwards you were wrong, admit it. If you were right, tout it. If they continue to not “let you,” fire them. They’re only hurting your agency’s brand.

6. Start innovating. The industry is super ripe for this – new business models, new methods, new communication vehicles. If business is a spear, traditional marketing communications is the tip. Agencies have moved back from the tip a bit, into below-the-line marketing communications. Agencies need to move further back into new product/service development, branding environments, and more. This is where real value is today and in the future.

What do you think? Am I on track, way off or missing anything?

Also, Scott asked in my last post who I think are the half-dozen or so agencies that are doing things right and stand for something. In no particular order:

- R/GA - They're interactive, good at it and aren't pretending to be something else.
- Crispin Porter - Trite response, but like it or not they stand for something. They decided to solve problems in new ways that are now taken for granted.
- Zimmerman - They know retail and they are interested in linking to results.
- Anomaly - They're taking a fresh approach to the industry with business models, innovation of offerings, etc.

Any other agencies you're impressed with?

Comments

[Sean Scott]

Great post Jon.

I would add a few things like:
- "know your clients' audiences". For all the professing about brand building i still think there is a large disconnect between agencies and their client's audiences. If there wasn't they would know where they need to be to reach them

- "think long term". a lot of initiatives traditional agencies have focused on typically are what i call bite-size experiences. They are short-term remedies in a world where we need to start looking at engagement point in the long term, beyond launch. How are you feeding content to that widget or site 6 weeks after launch. how are you aligning new initiatives and solutions in the context of existing touch points.

I certainly don't think it's a definitive list but i think it's a great addition to your list.

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