Should Advertising Agencies Be Called Advertising Agencies?
stand on the meaning of the words advertising agency. But there isn’t.
So we don’t have a respected authority to look to for a definitive, statistically accurate picture of how that continuum looks today. Nor the precise shape, location or movement of the various clusters.
But there are some helpful tangential studies and, of course, lots of anecdotal evidence. Based on those sources here are some thoughts.
Beliefs
There is likely to be little argument to the belief that the majority of marketing executives view advertising agencies as providing many more services that just advertising. Most are not stuck in that narrow, literal view. They have a much broader perspective than that.
And that very few actually think much about the legal implications of the word agency. They view advertising agencies as providers of an increasingly broad range of helpful services. And not infrequently they use that dreaded word “vendor” when categorizing advertising agencies.
However, as a recent Forrester study points out, many senior executives consider advertising agencies excellent at creating and placing advertising but not as strong as they should be in digital and other forms of new media.
These important influences apparently believe that advertising agencies as a group have not embraced non-traditional ways of influencing customer behavior as quickly or effectively as they would like. And this has opened their consideration to providers outside the traditional advertising agency category.
Obviously, each agency is different. And the speed and effectiveness with which each has embraced new tools and techniques is different.
But the overall view that Forrester reflects matches lots of anecdotal evidence. Thus, the advertising agency category is frequently painted with this broad brush.
The Agency Conundrum
In addition, some agencies are caught in a trap. A trap largely of their own making. Much of their income comes from hourly charges for creating and producing advertising. And many have become addicted to the revenue that work generates.
At the same time many are not adequately paid for their strategic contributions to client success. Nor have they figured out how to effectively monetize the use of new tools and techniques, particularly in the digital and social world.
This is a tough spot to get out of. But not an impossible one.
A vanguard of progressive advertising agencies are demonstrating powerful chops in digital, social media and promotional PR. And in doing so are effectively and efficiently changing the behavior of their clients’ consumers and being fairly rewarded in the process.
And at the same time expanding the definition of the words advertising agency. At least as that category relates to their specific agency.
The Flip Side
Concurrent with the expansion of services from the advertising agency side, many PR firms, digital and interactive organizations (and other new media service providers) are expanding into the arena that was once the sole province of advertising agencies.
In fact, only a few years ago it was common for new media firms to be primarily technologically driven. While today, it is increasingly likely for them to be much more concerned with the psychological implications of how the user interacts with their technology.
A very significant and very unifying shift.
We Are One
Remember, regardless of what a firm in this broad continuum is called, we are on one unified mission. To change consumer behavior for the benefit of our client, the individual consumer and society as a whole. Often using different tools, but with the same outcome in mind.
We have more in common than that which separates us. And in that truth lies the way forward.
There is no prescribed solution to this category name issue. Nor will there be. Nor should there be.
The language and the business models will be defined by the marketplace. Success in that marketplace will determine the definitions that grow. As well as those that decline.
So, the meaning of the words “advertising agency” may continue to expand. Or it may change. Or just drift away. Same is true for the words “PR firm,” ‘digital agency,” etc., etc.
And, an umbrella category may never materialize.
But that’s OK.
Whatever Works
Every firm in this broad category, whether it began as an advertising agency, or a PR firm, or a digital shop, or a sales promotion business, etc. will be judged not by its category but by how well it accomplishes the objective of influencing consumer behaviors for its clients. The value it brings those clients.
What it chooses to call itself is less