Connecting the Connected Agency conversation

About two weeks ago, Forrester published the Connected Agency report.  As expected, the reactions have been both positive and negative; if everyone agreed about the shape of agency of the future, then the research wouldn't have been worth writing.

I do, however, see a rough separation in sentiment between digital agencies (positive) and traditional agencies (negative).  Why is that?

Some reactions:

• "There is an healthy pull pulling both corporate communications/marketing and agencies/vendors up to new heights, faster and faster." Ken Kaplan, Intel
• "'Where have you been, my friend?' to the thought that the digital guys are going to be any better: they're also mostly tied up with old ideas about influence and information being a key driver of behaviour." Mark Earls, Independent, formerly Ogilvy
• "When you look at this changes in context of the challenges for the CMOs -- then suddenly the urgency and seriousness of the problem facing Ad and Marketing Agencies becomes quite stark." Chris Tacy, Method
• "We’re not excusing the industry’s slow move to digital or failure to pick up on some of the changes in consumer culture, but it’s not always within our control. Trust. We wish it was." Agency Spy, Mediabistro
• "I do think its hard to consider the future of the agency business without recognising that the media agencies (or at least some of them) are driving real change for their clients." Simon Andrews, Mindshare
• "I'm a bit tired of constantly hearing how bad we are at what we do. the industry is changing, and rapidly. We get it. And some of us are actually trying to drive that change in ways that will help change the ways that agencies come up with solutions for our clients."  Mitch Caplan, Project Davinci (WPP)
• "Am I crazy about how ridiculous articles like this are…especially because they are re-run every. single. week. by the trades. Is this hell? Yes."  daily (ad) biz, Anonymous
• "Own up to the problem that most marketers are completely out of sync with the rest of the world, take some responsibility and then, just maybe, things might start to get a little better." Deb Wiseman, Crayon
• "Boy, did I screw up." David Deal, Avenue A|Razorfish
• "Instead of looking at what brands can tell people, we instead need to be looking at what brands can do for people." Paul Isakson, space150
• "I  believe that within a few years there will be less distinction between digital, advertising and pr agencies - we will in turn become influencer agencies that span multiple media." Jonny Bentwood, Edelman
• "Sometimes it sucks being ahead of the curve."  Tac Anderson, HP
• "Sadly, most agencies still don’t get the new space, or if they do, they lightly gloss it over by saying “Oh yeah, we’ve a blog” and when I look, it’s a bunch of self-serving posts written by a variety of different folks with little strategy and few comments." Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester
• "One major problem with advertising agencies is that they’re exceptional at believing their own bullshit." Jason Falls, Doe Anderson
• "I would argue if you have that experience, skills and aptitudes, then transposing them into the new techniques and channels offered by social media is a lot simpler than trying to come at it from the direction of the advertising agency." Steve Ellis, Metia Software
• "As communities & conversations become more and more important, there is a need to understand how to build analytical models around huge "conversational  databases" that will emerge." Sivaraman Swaminathan, Customer Equity Solutions
• "How much can an agency facilitate conversations and nurture connections? I feel this is primarily a job for the brands themselves." Shiv Singh, Avenue A|Razorfish
• "Despite the wealth of information out there, distilling it into useful, actionable insight isn’t easy, and in fact it’s one area where old-school disciplines can help new media and digital mature as a discipline." Outside Line
• "Agency expertise has always tended to be siloed so things really become interesting when you connect media behavior with front end data for segmentation and predictive modeling with back end website analytics. Suddenly a different picture starts to form." Steven Duke, Wunderman

I'm glad we got people thinking - and this is just the beginning.

Comments

[daily biz]

What an interesting break in reactions to the report.

I know that, from a traditional agency perspective, we have been hearing something similar for a while...even though television advertising has stayed strong and may even make gains this year in terms of spending and online platforms like social networking have not lived up to the (admittedly hyped-up) promise.

We all know that this webbernet thing is here to stay and traditional agencies ignore it at their peril...and yes, conversations with consumers and creating something, be it a product, marketing message or what-have-you, that people search out and WANT to consume/see/whatever is going to differentiate the leaders from the pack.

It's just that we have known this for a while...and the lesson is not unique to digital.

[Tac Anderson]

Peter,
Something I thought of reading through the reactions is "what do their clients look like?" I'd be willing to bet that the agencies who react negatively are the ones who's clients are reacting negatively to new media and the agencies who seem to "get it" probably have clients who "get it" too. Don't know for sure, just a hunch.

[mark Earls]

Sorry, Peter. Don't think you got folk thinking; quite the opposite.

As all too many of the comments you quote suggest, the original piece was derivative of stuff we've all been saying for a while and thus just plain annoying to many. It's really old OLD news, I'm afraid to anyone who's been thinking about the indusrty at all - and this is all the more irritating as it comes packaged as new news by you and your colleagues. That's one reason why folk might not like what you're saying.

And if you're surprised by the digital/other split in responses, I suggest you look at what the report says: s that the future is in the hands of the digital agencies...go figure! Who do you think is going to like this?

There are major omissions to the piece also. You clearly missed out the media players and what they're doing (some of which is really smart) and the newer platform-neutral plays (like Anomaly or Naked) entirely off the piece. No wonder this lot don't like your thinking!

For the reputation of the company who employ you, can I suggest you try to understand the landscape you're pontificating on a little better next time? And some of the debates that have been had within the industry? And - oh this is quite a good thing for a researcher - learn how to draw a sample?

[mark Earls]

Sorry, Peter. Don't think you got folk thinking; quite the opposite.

As all too many of the comments you quote suggest, the original piece was derivative of stuff we've all been saying for a while and thus just plain annoying to many. It's really old OLD news, I'm afraid to anyone who's been thinking about the indusrty at all - and this is all the more irritating as it comes packaged as new news by you and your colleagues. That's one reason why folk might not like what you're saying.

And if you're surprised by the digital/other split in responses, I suggest you look at what the report says: s that the future is in the hands of the digital agencies...go figure! Who do you think is going to like this?

There are major omissions to the piece also. You clearly missed out the media players and what they're doing (some of which is really smart) and the newer platform-neutral plays (like Anomaly or Naked) entirely off the piece. No wonder this lot don't like your thinking!

For the reputation of the company who employ you, can I suggest you try to understand the landscape you're pontificating on a little better next time? And some of the debates that have been had within the industry? And - oh this is quite a good thing for a researcher - learn how to draw a sample?

[Peter Kim]

Mark - from the degree to which you seem bothered, I certainly got you thinking if no one else.

Tac - interesting thought; there were certainly some agency folk who expressed frustration that marketers were the ones holding things back. I've spent more time in my life on the client side than agency side and I know this is often the case.

Daily Biz - if this is so obvious, then why isn't more being done about it? What's that saying about insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result.

[kenekaplan]

Thanks for including my "pull pulling" quote. This is an argument if you want it to be, or a reflection or analogy for what's happening with any profession as it evolves and works more with other specialized fields. We all survived the move from getting phones at work, then getting fax machines, next email accounts and access to the Internet. Seems there's no "digital" future without our "tradition" experiences/lessons. Moving ahead means working together, meshing skills and experts from different teams to solve problems or make noise to help keep things/conversations on the right track. Isn't that what we all do at the family dinner table?

It's not that simple, but this topic doesn't have to be divisive. Feed the parts that are mutually beneficial and allow us to grow, innovate, improve.

[Shiv Singh]

Peter,

It certainly got me thinking. Here was my response - http://shivsingh.com/goingsocial/2008/02/the-connected-agency.html Interesting stuff.