Message v. subject: execution v. idea.
Earlier this year, I participated on a panel at PSFK’s San Francisco conference. The topic was Social Media. The goal was to provide practical advice to people on how to bring social media into their companies. In a potentially business-limiting move, I suggested that marketing firms ought to get out of the way when it comes to social media and let their clients speak for themselves. To me social media is simply another channel for customers to form relationships with people at the companies they do business with. The last thing they want is some puppet-master marketer controlling or orchestrating the conversation. To compound the damage, that evening at an after party, I did my best to persuade a very nice lady from Starbucks that she didn’t need our help (p.s. If you’re reading, I’m an idiot and we’d love to work with Starbucks).
Yesterday, Barry Judge from Best Buy said basically the same thing in a speech he gave (ironically) at the AAAA Creative Summit. One of my partners, @caerickson, was there at the event and noted that there appeared to be a bit of anxiety over the role of the agency in all of this.
For an industry that is based upon crafting and delivering clients’ messages for them, social media is indeed a disruption. If, as I believe, the adoption of social media by all companies is inevitable, what role does the communications agency fulfill?
To me this is another symptom of an industry that can’t seem to address the fundamental problems with the basic assumptions upon which it is founded. It’s easier, I suppose, to pretend that it’s the tools or nature of communications delivery that have changed rather than facing up to the fact that communications, as a product, is losing relevance. It’s easier to talk about channel neutrality and being digital while not actually addressing the fact that all you’re talking about are different ways to craft and disseminate messages.
However, I think that this relentless focus (purposeful or otherwise) on communications also blinds agencies to larger opportunities that are emerging. Clients may not need help talking to their customers but that doesn’t mean they don’t need help. After the channels of communication are established and after the pleasantries have been exchanged, customers will want something to talk to companies about. The best things to talk about are things that the company is doing to make their products, services or experiences better. It seems to me that there’s still a lot of demand for help in improving our clients’ core services and making them more marketable. For applying marketing thinking to operations. Personally I find it’s actually far more rewarding to do this kind of work because you’re actually collaborating with your clients on things that are lasting and have unquestioned (rather than questionable) value within their organisations.
I also think that agencies focus on communications and their belief that they should be paid to create communications prevents them from giving their clients the right advice on social media. For most agencies, there’s little if any profit in telling their clients to get involved in social media. Even if they are helping to get the ball rolling in some way, there’s very little production or execution money associated with giving your client tips on how to follow followers on Twitter. The real money is going to be in doing Twitter for them which is exactly the wrong answer. Agencies may retreat to the sanctity of “content creation” but the idea that your livelihood is based on creating content which the clients then transmit and disseminate and share with their customers sounds just as precarious to me.
Sadly, I’m starting to believe the communications industry is rotten to the core. It’s chief product and it’s chief source of revenue are at odds, in a dramatic fashion, with doing the right thing. How then can it thrive and be honourable at the same time?
Chris Wiggins Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 2:06 pmNice post Adrian.
I couldn’t agree more with your point that marketers have (or at least should have) a minor role at best in their client’s use of social media. It’s gotta be real. And there’s definitely not a business model in merely giving clients tips or showing them how they should use it. This will only become more true as corporations start ‘getting it’ on a wider scale. I agree with you that that’s inevitable.
I was at the AAAA summit too and it was in fact my question to Barry Judge that illustrated the irony in the content of his presentation given to whom he was giving it. I asked what role , if any, he saw for his ad agency in helping Best Buy sculpt and execute their various social media experiments. I think he misunderstood me to be asking if he’s interested in the ‘puppet-master’ scenario as you put it. Obviously he’s not, I already knew that, and good for him. But even though he misunderstood me, it was very clear that he feels his brand is perfectly capable of doing everything it wants to do using social media without any agency’s help. I bet he’s right. And I bet more companies will be in that position soon.
I also agree with your point that in spite of this, there are great opportunities, and that restricting focus to communications will hamstring an agency. It prevents them from taking advantage of emerging opportunities.
But can’t quite come with you on the jump from this to your condemnation of the future of advertising agencies. It’s because I don’t agree that ‘advertising industry’ = ‘communications industry.’ At least it doesn’t have to, even if it (mostly) does today. Your post would have convinced me (if I didn’t already believe it) that agencies who focus only on communications have a dim future. But I believe (not just because I need to
that an advertising agency needn’t make that mistake—that there’s nothing stopping them from taking advantage of the very same opportunities you reference. If there is a thing that could stop it, it’s obviously financial feasibility. It’s easy to infer that ad agencies have no choice but to focus on communications in order to pay their huge bills. If so, what I’m describing is impossible. I don’t believe it is. In fact I think the word ‘advertising’ will have a significantly different definition in 10 years—one in which communications is only a part.
If I’m wrong, I’ll know soon enough, when my agency’s gone.
Time will tell I guess.
O.S Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 2:15 pmOh, I’ve had this conversation with my boss. After having talked clients out of (or strongly suggesting) staying out of social media for the reason you mention. Obviously NOT being prepared to talk with consumers, spending time and resources. It’s still that old “campaign” mentality that prevails. It doesn’t hit home with management but I still think it’s the way to go. If clients don’t really want to connect on daily basis, doing it themselves in a genuine manner - then don’t do it, just becase everybody else is.
Steve Poppe Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 3:17 pmRefreshing thinking. I completely agree. Agents should get out of the way. The problem is that companies oftne don’t like to listen to what their comsumers say. Too busy. So they’ll put someone junior on it and insights will be missed. Andy Grove used to listen to the customer hotline recordings first thing every morning. Before coffee. Before reading the paper. Peace!
agencies and social media - Alfred Malmros Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 4:09 pm[...] best blog on the internet, From The Head Of Zeus Jones, writes about a growing occurrence in ad land. That traditional agencies have nothing to benefit [...]
adrian Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 6:27 pm@Chris thanks, Christian told me it was you but I didn’t want to blow your cover ;D
I agree, agencies are capable of change, and I know there’s a bunch that are trying to sort through this. But for every one of those, there are a dozen others - many of them digital agencies who still start with a communications brief - who still turn things over to a “copywriter” who still, for all their talk of progress, work in the same way they have for decades.
Individual agencies will survive because there are smart people who can and want to do the right thing in them. I really think it’s an industry problem - why has advertising become a dirty word that no one wants to be associated with. Why did AKQA start their presentation with we’re not an agency.
I’m not on a high horse here, obviously we’ve (ZJ) done the exact same but that tells you there’s something rotten.
Barry Judge Says:
October 28th, 2008 at 8:43 pmI do feel very strongly that people who work for companies have to participate as themselves in social media. Social means people interacting with people. You can’t outsource that. I am really clear on how we should be participating. I am not sure how Agencies participate for Clients. So Chris Wiggins is right when he said I misunderstood his question.