No question, things are changing in the marketing industry. The multinational conglomerates are in a feeding frenzy, eating up digital shops and rolling them into their agency networks as fast as they can. They're buying bright minds on the leading edge of new media and figuring out ways to roll them in as part of their vertically integrated service offering. They're doing this because that's where the money is moving to. Surprise, surprise. This is nothing new.
Last week, some guy wrote an opinion piece entitled 5 Reasons You No Longer Need an Agency. I've been loathe to talk about it because it's such an obvious sensationalist ploy for blog hits and retweets. Regardless, the author brings up a couple interesting points worth discussing.
I'm going to paraphrase reason 1: There's no longer a need for 'the big idea'. Media fragmentation, content distribution and things like "consumer conversations" have fractured the 'big idea' into many small ideas.
My retort: The ‘Big Idea’ is as relevant or perhaps more than it ever was. The big idea is your brand. I don’t agree that the big idea needs to come from inside an organization. It’s great if it does, but I can’t see any reason why that kind of insight can’t be generated externally from information provided internally. (Communications theorists might disagree, but nobody listens to those guys anyway.) Sure media is fragmented and content can now be created for specific consumer subsets. But you still need the skills to accomplish that.
Then there’s the matter of execution. You need to outsource all the separate pieces of production and you still need to increase the skill level in-house to accomplish what most agencies can do. An in-house marketing team with Wordpress isn't likely to replace Razorfish any time soon.
Paraphrase reason 2: Websites are too big and expensive. Clients are getting talked into buying more than they need.
My retort: He has a point here. It’s like realtors—given their fee structure, what incentive do they have to sell you a cheaper house? However, it’s also incumbent on you to determine at least partly what you need and how much you want to spend. An agency can help you with some or all of that. And the end of the day you determine whether you want to spend $500k on a site or $5k on a Wordpress site. As a marketer you still have to be informed enough to make that decision.
Paraphrase reason 3: Traditional marketing is ineffective and online marketing is complicated, so you need to simplify--just use Facebook, Twitter and a blog.
My retort: I'm pretty sure he's just making this point up because '5 reasons to ditch your agency' is way more impressive than 4. However, I’ve heard the traditional is dead argument enough times to start to see how wrong it is. Traditional has a place. Facebook isn’t likely to move a lot of socks or dish detergent, no matter how stoked your friends are about it.
Paraphrase reason 4: Focus groups are evil and expensive.
My retort: I agree. The focus group was never reliable or accurate and much better ways of gathering that kind of information are emerging. I think Twitter is better than a focus group and significantly less costly.
Paraphrase reason 5 (and this is a doozy): You need to rebuild and restaff your organization in order to take advantage of the first four reasons.
My retort:I hate to say it, but I agree again, despite how preposterous the idea is. If you can hire and retain top-tier talent for any length of time, and also remove the management-imposed shackles that are systemic in your organization, then do it!!! Good luck with that.
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