Digital is democratised: the difference is depth
Opinion
The next wave of change will define the success of agencies and their clients businesses, writes Assembly’s Europe CEO.
Every agency is now good enough at digital. It never used to be that way, there used to be agencies that got it more than others and some that were known to be slow to adopt and pivot their business models, but nowadays, it’s become table stakes, and that list of bad digital agencies doesn’t exist.
And this is a good thing. Having a higher bar of competency across large and small agencies is a brilliant partner to media owner innovation and advancements in democratising access to inventory and audiences — it moves us all forward with relevance and efficiency. Because it is not just that agencies have become better at digital, it’s because the digital partners have made it easy to use, and this speed of ease is only increasing. There are even those that will do it for you, so you don’t have to bother.
Barriers of friction, geography, and service have been removed from the scale players in this space: from the behemoth of Google making their user experience so incredibly intuitive to those pushing for inventory democratisation harder than others, such as ITV and their leading strategy to create platforms to facilitate this such as Planet V.
Five key elements
So where does the difference lie? How do you make a selection as a client? In a democratised digital world, the difference is now depth.
The ease of campaign automation and speed of execution, coupled with rapid advancements in AI, have fundamentally changed what type of digital skills agencies need – and its root and branch change. Legacy models are adapting to this next wave of change in order to grow, newer models are not so new, and independent agencies that have honed their craft in one specialism are looking to branch into new areas.
The difference of depth will have five key elements for agencies to address:
1. Shifting your resources from having execution armies to value add strategic services
Automation products such as Performance Max from Google and Advantage + from Meta, whilst still embryonic, will only get better. It won’t be long before clients can put their credit card into Uncle Silicon Valley’s ATM, and off the campaigns go.
Optimisation skills are less relevant today than six months ago and less relevant tomorrow than today. Anyone that thinks they can optimise digital media better than AI is deluded.
2. AI application will rapidly move from redefining consumer-facing platforms to business-facing ones
It will be a very short time until you can log in, tell the platform what audience you want, what your budgets and seasonality are, what results you want, and how long you want them, all in one paragraph, and off you go.
This approach will be sufficient for over 50% of UK advertisers and will raise the question of why clients pay Soho House rates for something that is easier than ever to do themselves. With 75% of media being algorithmic in three years, there are questions to be asked about the future of media planning.
3. Data science will be even more important than it is now
Training the generic algorithm through advanced data models will help give clients a competitive advantage and category share. Going deeper into lifetime modelling and altering bid patterns to reflect a value beyond an initial interaction will be the depth that makes a meaningful difference to a client’s results. This will happen across all media as platform and published engineering standards commonise.
4. In a world of automation, AI, and efficiency, the talent you have and their depth of expertise will be critical to success
There are 200 Google top-tier Premier Partners in the UK — that’s no longer differentiated. What is differentiated is the talent behind the certifications and their view on how to leverage digital channels for success. Clients will still buy your view of the world and how to help them win.
5. There is no online or offline
There is algorithmic and non-algorithmic. Your teams need to have the depth of knowledge across all platforms with a mindset beyond a single channel and be able to transcend brand or performance. An agency’s depth of understanding of how brands operate across both sides of the algorithm will be critical to survival.
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The next wave of change will define the success of agencies and their clients businesses — there will be those that move faster than others, those that can see further into the future, and those that do something about it today to ensure they can still win and be relevant in a new world tomorrow.
Matt Adams is CEO, Europe, of Assembly