Ad agencies - Looking out for your business or theirs?

As Cannes film festival sits upon us, I am reminded of the hype and pep talks at agency meetings given by the agency owners on the importance of winning a Golden Lion.

At first, you get caught up in the moment but after returning to your desk, the reality of helping your clients achieve their goals comes into play.

Often times Account Directors or leaders with the clients best interests at heart have to battle with the the creative leaders of the agency. You see, more often then not, agency principals and their creative teams focus on what 'creative' campaign will win them an award and get them some visibility as opposed to, "lets do what's best for the client and focus on their objectives".

Take a look around your agency. I am sure their are plenty of folks frustrated with the amount of focus the agency owners are giving toward winning awards.

The agency model is slowly imploding in onto itself. I know not all ad agencies treat their clients like this but this seems to be the prevailing trend. Just ask folks who are in the industry.

Ad agencies need to be more selfless, not just for their clients well being but also for their survival.

Integrated Marketing - All talk?

As I skim through my daily feeds, Twitter filters, gmail alerts and other aggregated data sources I become overwhelmingly frustrated at the amount of chatter I see from the marketing leaders in our industry.

This includes agency owners and executive level management. So much buzz around providing clients with integrated marketing campaigns or "360 degree" campaigns, as they call it. The buzz is centered around an idea. The idea is to effectively reach clients' target market using every marketing channel (TV, Print, Online, OOH, radio, mobile, etc).
The problem with this is, its all talk. A sales pitch, if you will. Agencies trying to get the client to sign-off on more projects than is necessary. There is nothing wrong with trying to make extra money where you can but make sure your recommendation makes good business sense. The client needs to understand WHY you are recommending a specific approach tied to multiple channels. Don't just throw digital in there just because its cool or because your digital business unit has been in the red for the last year. The client needs to see how you are going to help achieve their goal, identify the appropriate target, find out how to appropriately reach s/he (online, TV, etc), and the tactics you will be using. Yes, there is more detail around the approach I just mentioned but I wanted to summarize for the sake of this posting.

Marketing aside, the other major problem marketers run into is the actual integration process. The operations. Unbeknownst to the client, most marketers do not have a solid internal process that manages how marketing channels will function when it comes time to execute. This means individual business units like, direct marketing, creative, digital, research, etc, will mostly likely trip over each other when a creative brief is given, resulting in an overage of billable hours and employees that are frustrated with management and also over worked.

What are clients to do? My recommendation is to ask your agency or vendor upfront, what their internal process is for channel integration. Ask for a copy of the actual process flow. Chances are they will not have one to you immediately and will turn one around to you by the end-of-week.
Godspeed!