The New Shape of Agencies

Last month the US agencies39 trade bodyamp160the 4As held its Transformation Conference at which both Maurice Levy from Publicisamp160and Wendy Clark from Omnicom39s DDB were amongst the speakers Clark is an agency leader who has changed quotsidesquot her previous role being at The CocaCola Companyamp160Also last month we heard from WPP39s Sir Martin Sorrell at The Guardian39s Changing Media SummitThere are some common and interesting themes emerging as the agency holding groups do indeed react to these changing timesFirst it seems that Omnicom and Publicis are separately on the move The aborted merger between the two of them must have had a dramatic effect on the two organizations39 speed of evolution after all it was only two years ago almost to the day that rumours started to appear that maybe this merger might not take place Two years isn39t long to regroup and regain any lost momentumThe AdAge report on the 4As event has Publicis39 Maurice Levy making the point that quotThe company will no longer be called a holding company but a connecting company39amp160because the holding company model is dead and gonequotamp160You can probably hear the hollow laughter from WPP who have for many years created client teams drawn from their appropriate operating units with varying degrees of success but there does seem to be a subtle differenceThe WPP model seems to me to be primarily about upselling WPP39s range of services to existing clientsamp160The Publicis phraseamp160quotconnecting companyquotamp160sounds a bit more about collaborating to meet client needs even if some of the collaborations are with nonPublicis companiesamp160Wendy Clark discussing her agency39s new DDB Flex approach talked of quotembedding media partners and marketing partners in the process and most importantly amp160embedding clients up front and early placing high priority on collaboration with clients and other partnersquotThere were two other interesting references Both Levy quotcreativity will remain indispensablequot and Clark quotputting your agenda ahead of your client39s agenda will never workquot seemed to be putting some clear blue water between themselves and WPPSir Martin Sorrell has never made any secret of his preference for numbers in every shape and form over advertising creativity Yes I know numbers can be creative tooamp160The financial strength of his GroupM network is crucial to the overall wellbeing of the holding company and there can be no question that a part of that financial strength comes from delivering to a singleminded vision of the Group39s own agenda almost regardless of clientsAfter all Sir Martin is greatly and rightly admired by his peers in client companies Being in any way driven by his clients39 agendas can39t come easyamp160It wasn39t really too much of a surprise when he announced that WPP was quotnot in the advertising business any morequotamp160although perhaps the insertion of the word quotonlyquotamp160might have been appropriateCommentator Asa Bailey put it well quotThe medical industry has not abandoned medicine and suddenly started rebranding doctors as computer programmers even though like in advertising increasingly doctors also rely on and use data and software to invent new ways to treat peoplequotCollaboration and creativity aided by technology versus control and technology as an end in itself seems to be about the sum of itThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet Inc management or associated bloggers Photo courtesy of GraphicStockamp160amp160

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