Should the Big Agencies Dump their Creative Departments? Let's discuss...
Advertising in Canada hit its largest growth spurt in five years reaching, 7.2% in 2006*. And not surprising to those pulling the all-nighters, internet advertising increased by 42.6% just in the last year.
As the internet continues to be the largest growing advertising medium, I can't help but wonder where Canadian agencies will responsibly spend the projected two billion US dollars they have earmarked for online media yearly through by 2011*. We may see the value of the coveted big-box on Sympatico.MSN's landing page hit 150K on any given Tuesday, or perhaps we'll see the sponsored Facebook group hit a half million just for entry, but at a certain point internet advertisers are going to hit the same wall their mass-advertising brethren are hitting now. Budgets and awareness are not the problem. Credibility is.
The role of media continues to evolve into the future as does advertising continue on its trajectory towards an "opt-in" model. As digital media begins to consume all others and another generation of digital-savvy consumers enters the workforce, opt-in will be the norm. There are ways, however, of encouraging consumers to opt-in: provide value in doing so. That doesn't mean couponing or fancy flash graphics; it means sourcing real value for the consumer in a scale currently unidentified in relation to the projected spend of two billion dollars a year to 2011.
In order for this spend to be effective, we'll need to see a fundamental shift in the agency model. How crazy can it get? Well, here are some ideas I've overheard or discussed lately...
#1 Should the agency and client work on product innovation together?
Do you find it strange that product R&D on the client side and strategy/planning on the agency side are not the same department? Why wouldn't an innovation team charged with identifying the needs of the consumer be working with the people who are tasked with the job of communicating how those needs can be met? The coming together of these two sides must happen at the genesis of the needs assessment, not during the last few months before a product hits the shelves. In a more radical notion, shouldn't this also include the future creative department?
#2 Should Agencies Dump their Creative Departments?
What if the creative department was client-side and the agency simply dealt with planning, strategy and insights? Agencies rarely make money on creative anyway. For all that effort, the work they put in before the brief may actually be more effective if they didn't have to execute on it in the end.
In a strange world, this may actually work. Many people believe that smaller agencies have better creative departments, but I disagree. They just have fewer layers of approvals to get to client. In the big agency world, great creative gets to the client about 20% of the time, and the rest is squashed by an internal review process.
Discussions with creative peers across the country have confirmed this tragedy. Furthermore, I'd say only 5% of "great" creative makes it to production, but even then the idea is usually watered down by the client approval process.
That's why we rabidly email each other only about a dozen TV ads a year - the lucky few that make it through and are thus worth passing. Cut the agency out of it and you could see an 80% increase in creative quality. It's a strange new world and I don't know any world but this one.
Wait a minute... If you're going to move strategy, innovation and creative client-side, what need have you for the agency at all? That brings me to my next point.
#3 Should agency media departments thin out and spread out, just like their peers in media?
Will the role of the agency media department shift from charts filled with white boxes to outreach and understanding? Is the only thing the agency really offers the client a keen understanding of would-be buyers? Perhaps a deeper understanding of consumer needs could be the role of the media department; particularly if you're looking at social media - where being social is required. This can't be achieved from towers in the big three urban centres of Canada. This has to happen across the country, across multiple neighborhoods, cultures, ages and economic communities. The opt-in insights will come from the people themselves. That means bottom up, and you better be there to hear them.
We have about $6.3 billion* to spend by 2011 and figure it out. Let's do it wisely. We all deserve a future.
Of course, this is a blog, so you can't hold me to any of this when I completely agree with the comment or counterpoint you're about to make... but that's the point of discussion isn't it?
*source: PricewaterehouseCoopers' Global Entertainment and Media Outlook, 2007-11
