Agencies: 15 Risks You Can't Afford Not to Take - Agency News - Advertising Age

Agencies: 15 Risks You Can't Afford Not to Take

Viewpoint: Forget the Recession, This Is No Time to Ignore Changes to the Agency Business Model

Posted by Tim Williams on 11.18.09 @ 01:37 PM

Tim Williams

Risk-aversion is a natural human trait, and it's one that gets amplified in times of trouble. Given we're all suffering through an exceptionally difficult economy, this is one of those times many of us feel like pulling in our horns and toughing the tough patch out.

That's the worst possible course of action we could take.

As every informed agency executive knows, we're at the nexus of the Great Recession and the Great Transformation of Marketing. In circumstances like these, a strategy of "just try harder" won't take you very far.

Economists are always talking about types of risks you can afford and the kinds you can't afford to take. For those of us in the agency business, the latter bucket of risks is mostly about failing to adapt to the dramatic changes affecting the agency business model.

Here are 15 things agencies can't afford to risk.

1. A skill set built mostly around interruption instead of engagement. Agencies are used to delivering exposure for their client's brand messages, measured by things such as reach, frequency and cost per impression. With the consumer firmly in control of his or her media-viewing choices and habits, no amount of exposure matters if nobody's paying attention. What agencies sell -- or should sell, anyway -- is engagement. The metrics of engagement are completely different from the traditional media measurements of the past, including attentiveness, receptivity and buzz potential. Exposure is about efficiency. Engagement is about effectiveness.

2. A digital department in place of a digital competency. The digital department of the 2000s is like the TV department of the 1950s. The digital revolution has been around long enough that it's time for specialized departments to go away. Virtually every position that exists in digital departments has a natural home in the already existing functions of the agency. All it takes is a mandate from management that digital will be a competency of the agency, not a department.

3. Core competencies focused on "one to many" instead of "one to one." Lots of agency professionals have an irrational fear of data and databases, even though the future of marketing clearly revolves around understanding how to leverage that information. Thanks mostly to the internet, mass audiences can now be identified and targeted in ways that make much better use of marketers' money. Agencies need to move from mass messaging to mass customization. Agencies know broadcasting, but must now learn narrowcasting.

4. Creating brand-to-consumer communications at the expense of consumer-to-consumer communications. The agencies that grew up in an era of controlled communications now have to learn how to serve their clients in a world of open conversations. This requires a very different skill-set and service offering. It also means moving beyond consumers as audience to consumers as media.

5. Lack of analytics and tools to measure effectiveness. Agencies -- and many advertisers -- still have the wrong-headed view that effectiveness is too difficult to measure. Too many red-herring arguments get in the way of agencies getting more serious about analytics: Of course there is no silver bullet for perfectly calculating ROI. Of course agencies can't be held fully responsible for sales. But this shouldn't stop agencies from helping clients identify and test the key drivers of bra

via adage.com

great insights into the rules of our business...now!

Posted via web from #think: Freddie's posterous

the three wildest interpretations of Thriller might not be by MJ. See inpiration here.

one song, but not an ordinary one obviously.
Amazing what it inspired.
From wedding grooms to a full jail in Asia to my now "favorite" a'capella. Not sure which I prefer but make sure you check the three. Makes you think about the power of inspiration...

wedding grooms

prison inmates

a' cappella

appart from the original do you have a better one?

Posted via email from #think: Freddie's posterous

I cried laughing.Who needs a band when one voice can do it all. Starlight with a new voice...

A little corny for sure, but a real performance. Well worth a look!

Enjoy this, and please keep them coming... Thanks to publigeekaire.com for finding this one.

http://bit.ly/4b2qT2

Posted via email from #think: Freddie's posterous

economists say rationnal models don't work

via econ.nyu.edu

Posted via web from #think: Freddie's posterous

#think: Your left brain is trying to kill you.

This century has started with the reign of one individual: the left brain.

#think:

Bizarrelly enough, that very same individual brought our economies to their knees.

The left brain told us we could build models. And we did. Mathematicians build wonderful tools for our banks, so complicated no one really understood them. But they were maths so we had to believe. And what anyone with sense would have said didn't make any became the thing to do. The rest is history: subprimes, credit galore. The left brain said it would be fine.

The left brain said that to grow you were better off buying large corporations rather than starting new ones. M&A galore. the models said it was the way. Mercedes and Chrysler. Alcatel and Lucent. Vivendi and Universal. The left brain said it was fine.

The left brain said you can test advertising models. So we showed people campaigns and asked them to switch their left brain on to comment. We are now surprised that most of these very same people hate advertising finding it boring, and irrelevant.

Stocks, houses prices, oil, people, new products, new campaigns, everything now has a mathematical and testing model.

It makes every decision so easy. If the model says fine, then we have no real decision to make. It makes managing so much more predictable, removes the risk, help the decision maker to never be alone, and helps him to go home and rest.

BUT.

Isn't it time we woke up to the fact that this is simply a mirage. That in most cases it does not work.

And it doesn't just 'not work', it is destroying us. Because by giving our left brain so much space, we are forgetting to train our biggest asset: our right brain. The one that imagines, the one that knows we are human, the one that can create the unpredictable. The only one that has a chance to see what no one has done before, the one that knows that at the end of the tunnel there is light, and believes it so much that it will create that light.

Not that we should become extreme in the other way either. But if order leads to chaos. Why won't we get chaos to lead to order.

We need rulers and managers to invent a future. I said invent. To switch their right brain on. And then to manage. That's were the left brain comes back into play. Under close supervision though.

Managers need to know that they cannot just buy their way to success, that there is value in creating. That shareholders can be told to wait, and that there is a plan.

A financial world is fine if finance is here to power ideas.
And not to power itself which is what speculation really is. If the only idea is the spreadsheets, it can only do one thing after a while: collapse.

We had our wake up call with this crisis, we've all had enough of it by now. Are we awake, anyone wants to follow?

This transmission is intended solely for the person or organization to whom it is addressed and it may contain privileged and confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient you should not copy, distribute or take any action in reliance on it. If you believe you received this transmission in error please notify the sender.

Posted via email from #think: Freddie's posterous

invisible dogs invasion, the video is here. #think: why not..

This has got to be one of the best flsh mobs ever. You know the principle: crowd gathers and does something...unexpected let's say.
Why? Why not!

Posted via email from #think: Freddie's posterous

best flash mob I've seen: invisible dogs invade NYC. The video is here

Why? Why not!
You know the principle: get together, make something improbable happen, in this case a few hundred invisible dogs invaded NYC.
At last a pet you can take to the restaurant and to the office.

This transmission is intended solely for the person or organization to whom it is addressed and it may contain privileged and confidential information. If you are not the intended recipient you should not copy, distribute or take any action in reliance on it. If you believe you received this transmission in error please notify the sender.

Posted via email from #think: Freddie's posterous

never say die: 2 minutes of inspiration

They're a little tacky at times, over the top in most cases, but. But they can also turn a bad day into a far better one:

Posted via email from #think: Freddie's posterous

and now try to wash with that, the gaffe from Egypt. #think

Yes in Egypt, seems that copying the Lux soap lead to something rather...old fashioned or simply absurd?
Yes it's a 'beauty soap' says the tagline, and this time you need no translation...unless you're in Egypt maybe.
(See attached file: IMG_0379.JPG)

Posted via email from #think: Freddie's posterous

#think: the gaffe from Singapour. Finally revealed

And now from Singapour a manufacturer or wanna be very chic copies of Vuitton.
It's name 'fion'. So chic and French sounding. Yet it litterally means 'arse'. And to make it better its tagline: 'the way you are', really?...
(See attached file: IMG_0381.JPG)

Posted via email from #think: Freddie's posterous

#think: that's what I call a 'gaffe', see what I found around the world

"All global" is now the tune, and forget the locals, we'll translate all in one place.

Well judging from a few little gems that I collected over the years, we could be having a laugh over the next few years.

See for example a drink that you could find yourself ordering in a bar in Croatia:
(See attached file: IMG_0378.JPG)

for those who do not speak French Pipi might sound sweet and fun, however and sorry for the low level, it means 'piss'. Not something you want to have offered (or potentially a huge hit who knows...)

Other ones follow soon...

Posted via email from #think: Freddie's posterous

#think: new on web: vengence online

Has twitter become the new teenage courtyard?
I am not sure if you've noticed over the nex tfew days but a few of the people I followed seem to have turned into childs. Not sure what happened between them but insults are flying high - or rather low.

One difference to the courtyard though: one of them has found an nteresting way to replace the 'writing on the toilet wall'. Different because beeing web it will not be erased. SO it seems tha tif you hold a gurdge against two people you can link their name on Google to such lovelly things as:
shaving your testicules
or
problems of vaginal flora.

Just type the two peoples names and the following google search page will come:

http://bit.ly/4joyzp

Posted via email from #think: Freddie's posterous

#think: How can that be true? The higher the price the lower the experience.

Is this world upside down?
Or why is it that the worst buying experience I tend to make are for the most expensive things that I buy?

I was working on a retail presentation for a client yesterday. And this sudden thought hit me.
Take a house, or a flat for us cityfreeks. It's going to cost you from a few hundred thousand to a few million, depending on that paycheck...
The last time I did buy a flat, I was expected to say yes after a 25 minutes tour. Almost insulted as if I was a complete moron when I asked to see the flat again. In total I probably was allowed to spend a full hour. Then I got the keys and jumped into the unknown for something I will be paying for in the next 35 years.

Take a car. It's going to cost anything from 7000 to a couple hundred depending on that same paycheck. If you're wearing jeans and a jumper with a hood as I did last time I bought a car, it is unlikelly you will be spoken to in the first 20 minutes of your dealer visit. I finally stormed out of a dealership that thought I just wanted a free brochure which in fact was the last thing I wanted.
I was not able to test drive the car, but offered to try a lesser model, since what I wanted was 'too rare to let drive'.

Take a luxury jewel or watch. See yourself waiting at the jewellers if you have not put your suit on (once they've let you in), see them not recognising you from the last one you bought, see them asking you to call them back to see if they've finally received that expensive piece you wanted.

Now take an Ipod. A few hundred dollars, but the salesman will know all about it (not like the salesman of the luxury brand that can only talk about...the colour of its suits). You will get free training in the Apple store with people who seem to know so much that you could spend hours at their lectures, you can also call their hotline in case you don't figure it out.

Take goat cheese at the local fromagerie. They'll recognise me (unlike the jeweller), they'll talk to me (unlike the car salesman), they'll let me taste it (unlike the estate agent), and they'll talk to me about the goats that made it (unlike the suit salesman).

Can't quite figure that out.

The first thing this says to me is that people will figure it out one day soon, that they will turn away from people who are obsessed with one thing only: getting them to buy, without making the effort of seducing them into it.

The second thing this says to me is that there is a real way to sell through the web that can actually make the buying experience better, more priviledged and that it is a shame that no luxury brand has taken advantage of it, and that so few have actually thought about how the web could make my buying-your buying more enjoyable.

In the meantime people have started to figure it out: they go on the web to replace the good salesman that does not exist anymore. And they go to the shop to negociate. Or even better, the use the web as I did fo my car. I ended up buying it on the web, getting it imported, and delivered right ot my door. Cheaper and better than I would have got if I had made more efforts.

Posted via email from #think: Freddie's posterous