MediaLinked: Big News: Holding Companies Are More Relevant Than Ever - Michael Kassan

Jay Chiat was wrong when he said that he wanted to see how big his agency could get before it got bad It39s a suspect link a faulty connection yet everyone who quotes that lineamp8212almost all of us at one time or anotheramp8212repeats it like they heard it from a burning bush on a mountain topHe was joking folks ChiatDay wasn39t exactly tiny when it created quot1984quot quotThink Differentquot or all of that amazing Nike work Big isn39t automatically badBad is badOf all the ridiculous memes that afflict our business the idea that an entity is slow cumbersome and unimaginative just because it39s large is one of the silliest Why for example are we always looking for the quotbig ideaquot If you follow the logic of the bigisbad meme wouldn39t it be better to have a quotsmall ideaquotI worked with many small to midsized shops when I ran Initiative Media Worldwide and trust me friends there is no shortage of changeaverse little agencies as well Small isn39t inevitably goodGood is goodI don39t think size is a guarantee of anything especially in our industry In fact you don39t succeed in the media game unless you are inventive and nimble regardless of where you work or for whom you workMisdirected memes have been on my mind since I read an Ad Age article about the formation of a new quotmarketing holding companyquot called Project Worldwide The piece went on to note the emergence of several smaller competitors to the Big Four holding companies and a significant percentage of the story was given over to complaints about how the quartet may be the wrong resource to foster innovation The suggestion was floated inevitably that maybe WPP Omnicom Interpublic and Publicis have outlived their usefulnessBecause they39re big you seeI don39t buy it certainly not where media services are concernedWPP and Publicis are segment leaders because they had and have inventive visionary parents who back them without hesitation Interpublic struggled for a time not because it was too large to display talent or innovationamp8212it has plenty of bothamp8212but because it took awhile to find the right structure and the right leadership to compete And at Omnicom John Wren doesn39t care if your shop employs a cast of thousands or it39s just you doing business out of the attic of your mother39s house as long as you make moneyIt39s hard to do that if you39re only offering big to clients demanding smart And by the way Dentsu and even MDC aren39t exactly small eitherNo I believe that the holding company model is more relevant than ever But like everything and everyone else it needs to be reformatted for a digital age With so many clients demanding rightly fully integrated solutions being able to deliver all those solutions seamlessly from the same source seems to me to be a competitive advantage not a hindranceThey39re not even holding companies in the traditional sense anymore They are facilitators and resources for the entities under their umbrellas and fully cognizant of the need to endlessly experiment and constantly question their own assumptions and structures Wren noted as much in the close to the Ad Age piece which quoted the holding company leader telling the 4A39s conclave in Austin that quotour ability to survive and prosper depends on our ability to adaptquotThe notion that the holding companies are dinosaurs simply because they39re behemoths does not hold up You could say the same of clientsamp8212until the latest audacious success from a Nike or a Unilever proves otherwiseI39m going to let you all in on a critical competitive secret no one else will admit It is possible to have brains and brawnAnd for marketers that39s very very goodMichael E Kassan is Chairman and CEO of MediaLink LLC a leading Los Angeles and New York Citybased advisory and business development firm that provides critical counsel and direction on issues of marketing advertising media entertainment and digital technology Michael can be reached at michaelmedialinkllccomRead all Michael39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Media LinkedCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates MediaBizBloggerMediaBizBloggers is an openthought leadership blog platform for media marketing and advertising professionals companies and organizations To contribute contact Jackmediadvisorygroupcom The opinions expressed in MediaBizBloggerscom are not those of Media Advisory Group its employees or other MediaBizBloggerscom contributors Media Advisory Group accepts no responsibility for the views of MediaBizBloggers authors

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MediaLinked: Big News: Holding Companies Are More Relevant Than Ever - Michael Kassan

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