The Agency Business Splits

Itamp8217s been a strange few weeks in what some of us still see fondly as amp8216adlandamp8217Much of the strangeness involves WPP I hesitate to suggest such a thing thereamp8217s an amp8216underseigeamp8217 sense that seeps out from many LI posts from WPPers Not every commentator isNothing but a disenchanted exemployeeA WPPhaterA holdcohaterOld and outoftouchGranted in my case one of these is at least partly truePushing on regardless and in case youamp8217ve been on Mars sorry poor choice of planetWPP announced the end of GroupM and the launch of WPP Media Unfortunately this was leaked to a trade paper before those most directly affected were told leading to considerable stress and worryWPP has lost businessWPP lost many senior media staff including the team that built what was MediaCom the UKamp8217s largest and over time most consistently successful agencyWPP lost its CEO who has announced heamp8217s leaving with no successor namedLetamp8217s try hacking away at the weeds whilst aiming off for vested interestsItamp8217s almost as if WPP and I would contend some of the other legacy holdcos too have left the ad business in order to become suppliers of specialist services to the ad businessOne commentator Pesach Lattin in his sermon suggesting Brian Lessor of WPP Media should get the top job even goes so far as to advise his champion to build an amp8216adtech business pretending to be a holding companyamp8217Iamp8217m not sure why thereamp8217s any need to pretend but he may have a point The question is is that wise And what is the ad businessHere39s what Dave Morgan of Simulmedia has to say about the current state of playamp8220Unfortunately too much of the ad industry fell in love with the means automated datadriven ad planning buying and measurement as tools for media trading not as tools for great advertisingamp8221I agree with DaveThereamp8217s a gulf thatamp8217s developed between on the one hand those who write the briefs for those who then craft the ads and on the other those who create the tools that lead in theory to better briefs and down the road a measurement of successWe mistake the tools as a means to an end in themselves as opposed to a set of well tools to do a job Meantime weamp8217re at risk of forgetting what the job isTo return to WPP to be fair I have never seen a presentation on WPP Media although I have seen videos and read posts from some involvedItamp8217s hard not to be impressed Combining datasets is terrifyingly difficult and politically nextto impossible But theyamp8217ve done it or so it appearsThe frontend AIdriven planning system has similarities in its base thinking to the Carat Sphere tool from the 1990amp8217s combined with a technology several generations along Sphere was similarly brilliant but it didnamp8217t last for many reasons including internal politics a lack of continuous training of those using as opposed to those building and absorbing the new tools into daytoday business In short reality got in the wayAnd that brings us to the amp8216Camp8217 word amp8211 clientsAgencies build services to win and keep clients Granted I donamp8217t spend as much time with clients as I used to but I think it still likely that the one thing clients crave above all from their agencies is results and that what delivers results according to those far clever than me is creativityBrilliant tech is of course in a sense creative but brilliant or not itamp8217s not an end in itself You still need ideasWhat I see and read about WPP is the brilliant tech without the creativity Closing JWT and YampampR and coming close to doing the same at Ogilvy does not send a sign that this is a business that interested in great adsLook at the noise around WPP Itamp8217s all about amp8216mediaamp8217 amp8216AIamp8217 amp8216technologyamp8217 Look at whoamp8217s speaking up for the organisation the technocratsI donamp8217t see or hear much from WPP creatives Unless itamp8217s about them leaving to go elsewhereOthers do it differently combining media in every sense including technology and research with creative output VCCP is one beacon of this approach amp8211 theyamp8217re not aloneClients come in all shapes and sizes and nobody doubts that huge complex advertisers need huge complex solutions The old MediaCom had an uncanny ability to handle the huge and the tiny in one shop and do great work for both often going above and beyond amp8216mediaamp8217 thinking Thatamp8217s a trick worth learningGreat tech is just that I get that having it in close to great strategies and great creative execution is in theory a good idea but culturally Iamp8217m not convinced it worksThe stresses and strains inherent within any publicly quoted business often conflicts with serving client needs through great advertisingHas WPP left the building Quite possibly but the new building may suit their cause as a publicly quoted business betterPosted at MediaVillage through the Thought Leadership selfpublishing platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillageorgMyersBizNet

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The Agency Business Splits

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Brian Jacobs

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The Agency Business Splits

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