Connected consumers spark agency model rethink
Mediatel’s Derek Jones (Chair) with ITV’s Gary Knight, Pixability’s Chris Bennett, Mindshare’s Richard Kelly and Facebook’s Nick Callaghan.
Is it time to get back together? Amid criticism that there is a distinct lack of “connected marketing” to serve tech-driven consumers, leading players from across the media industry have argued we could be set to witness the return of the full-service agency to help remedy the problem.
Well, at least something like it.
ITV’s commercial content director, Gary Knight, speaking at Videoscape 2016, said he believes there is a worrying lack of marketing able to fully connect the modern consumer’s experience of media and technology, largely because adland has been split into “isolated commercial islands.”
“We almost need a full service creative agency model,” said Knight. “I don’t think we’re physically going to build that but I think we can build that conceptually.
“What we need is powerful storytelling – so great content that uses the best of distribution devices, and the best of data and technology to add some robustness and scientific proof that that creative work is actually delivering end results for brands.
“That’s where we need to get back to. We lost it around 15 years ago, so this should be the big time – the golden opportunity – where we can have the most innovative, and really effective brand campaigns of all time. And yet the industry seems to have walked away from it.”
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Knight argued that you need a very powerful client to gather creative, media and other agencies together in order to “activate a true connected campaign”.
However, some agency groups are reorganising themselves, and Pixability’s European MD, Chris Bennett, looks towards Havas Media Group as a case in point.
“Later this year, Havas aims to put all of its constituent parts back together,” he said. “So that means creative, planning, strategy, data and technology all under one roof.
“I think what they’re trying to do, to some degree, is put the full-service agency back together.”
Speaking to Newsline outside of the conference, Havas Media Group’s UK CEO, Paul Frampton, agreed with Bennett’s assessment – and argued the connected consumer landscape had rendered legacy agency models not fit for purpose – however, he said he would not call this new model “full service”.
“I think ‘full service’ had creative and the ad agency in a higher elevation than media, so it was an unequal world,” he said.
“Today, however, distribution is as important – if not more important – than the creation of the ad.”
The new agency model, for Havas at least, will see all 17 agency brands come together under one roof – and that could mean some are given up as the business joins together to remove entrenched silos.
It also means creative and media will join together more frequently to partake in both advertising and media pitches.
The big challenge in all this, however, is a behavioural one. People have been working in these silos for the best part of three decades and have got used to working in isolation, Frampton said.
“It takes patience and over-communication [to move past this] – but you cannot deliver the best answer for today; for a world that is increasingly technology driven; where people are blocking advertising and turning away from brands unless you bring media and creative people to the table together.”