The Agency of the Future

Dug this out and dusted it off recently - Its a piece I wrote in January 08 about the new kind of marketing communications agency and at the time I must have been feeling pretty optimistic about the future.  Having said this a few things I have seen recently make me think it could be starting to look more realistic.  I'll have to think about what to wish for in 2009!

THE AGENCY OF THE FUTURE…

            The agency of the future should be geared up to deliver to the following…

-The future of client needs within the advertising and communications business
-Guidance in the future economy and the disruptive effect this will have on the way that client businesses make money
-The sustainable future of the planet

It will be set up as a sustainable carbon neutral enterprise which is indicative of a broader set of values based on the personal values of the people who work there. A sustainability ethos will breed a whole host of general benefits to the company such as a sense of personal engagement of staff, a sense of community, the positive client experience that this personal feel will achieve, a way to attract talent in the future, as well as first mover advantage in the battle to attract the clients of the future.  

It has two core services which are ‘double sided’ (which makes 4 in total.)

1a – Solutions planning
1b – Sustainable solutions planning

2a – Experimental new business models
2b – Sustainable experimental new business models

What is Solutions Planning? Why are their two sides?

The current marketing services model is not equipped to deal with the inevitable influx of new business opportunities that will emerge in the next 5+ years. The core output of most agencies is message based communication which is increasingly coming under threat.  

Current agency models are under threat because…
- advertising is becoming less effective
- Media is owned by consumers and therefore so is brand creation
- There are many more types of non advertising brand opportunities available
- There is a need for marketing output to have benefits in their own right in order for consumers to choose to use them – the rest ends up as expensive wallpaper.  

As this happens brands will need a whole host of new techniques that are not served by most existing agencies. These techniques will be the core offering of the new kind of agency. They will need to be more real, more human and more purposeful and will include…

-Brand innovation over advertising innovation
-Non-advertising end to end service solutions
-Participation marketing
-Collaborative and community based initiatives
-Brand networking (connecting companies with consumers, other brands, specialists, and partners versus creating an image that sits between these potential connections)

                At the same time it is predicted that sustainability will be bigger than the internet in its impact on business. Message based communication is even more ill-equipped to solve the problems created by the need for sustainable marketing ideas and initiatives

Current agency models are not equipped to deal with sustainability because…
- Messages can not have a green outcome… actions speak louder than words in this area!
- Sustainability can not be based on brand image
- It has to be driven by people and communities not brands and advertising

When you look at all of these more human and personal approaches that are needed for sustainable marketing you actually find that they are exactly the same things that any marketing company should be embracing in the future regardless of green issues.  In other words the expertise and understanding that is needed for sustainable marketing solutions is also the same as those that will be needed for all future brand solutions.  

              In the near future the two service options will be available to clients but beyond this it is expected that these will merge until ultimately all clients will only need sustainable solutions for their businesses.


What are experimental new business models? Why are their two sides?

The above describes the transition beyond the conventional advertising model and also into sustainable marketing that the new company will specialise in. However this is only one part of the offering of the new kind of agency.

Increasingly the role of the client marketing department will blur with the rest of the company in its remit. Instead of looking for communications opportunities it will increasingly be needed to look for business opportunities.

This is generally true because
- advertising is becoming less effective as a driver of business growth
- the new digitally driven world means a continual state of revolution
- greater collaboration between consumers and the business itself (not just the brand) will be needed

- With lower barriers to entry an experimental model is necessary which means trying things out in the real world.

Instead of an advertising agency businesses will need innovation agencies who can seek out, consult on, and introduce new business opportunities on a rolling basis. The exact services would need further development but they would include;

-Seeking/designing killer applications that could change the business model 
-Arranging brand and business partnerships in order to open up new markets
-Monetised communications solutions
-Idea generation and internal facilitation in order to devise new business models
- Trial and testing for new business ideas

Having said this the real disruption (and opportunity) that will face business and challenge the existing practices will be the prevention of climate change. Consumer pressure, government mandates, and market forces will mean that rapid and radical change will be necessarily.

- Companies will have to be nimble due to radical and quick changes
- Industrial production and consumption will become less viable forcing companies to shift towards more of a service model
- Most existing business models are inherently non-sustainable and so will not be able to compete with new sustainable models. Every company will need to be looking for these and fast!

             In the near future the need to be creative with the business and how it is profitable and not just in the communications will be important for companies.  However beyond this it is expected that every company will specifically need a spirit of constant innovation toward replacing inefficient or wasteful practices and ways of making money, with more sustainable and therefore profitable options.  The agency of the future should be a partner in achieving this.

Work of art, art of work

If one day I found myself retired and sat on a pile of money generated from one fruitful venture or another I have already decided that I would invest in commercial art projects.  Following on from the blurred lines theme it seems to me that one additional step past coupling a wine bar / organic cafe with an art gallery is for a business venture and an art project to be more intrinsically wedded.  Of course there are already plenty of businesses set up based on creative foundations, creative products and of course advertising but the companies themselves are not in themselves and art form.  What would be the credentials of a business that was set up as a work of art; over to wikipedia.

Work of art...  

A creation... that has been made in order to be a thing of beauty in itself.'

Wouldn't that be a reason to get up when the alarm goes off first time around, to stay calm and friendly in the office, to play nice?

Sustainability thinking says that environmental impact should become a further bottom line by which a company judges everything they do.  Somewhere in the multi verse there must be dimension in which 'being a thing of beauty,' sits on the bottom line as well.  The first management meeting to try and work out the best way to deliver on this new objective would be a funny place to be.  

I know its a bit out there but Steve Jobs puts a lot of the success of  apple down to his appreciation of the art of calligraphy!

Anyway my idea would be to offer money to art projects that are conceived with the notion of aiming to break even.  If a brand can be seen as a utility or a service then why not a work of art as well.  If you really want to engage the viewer then give them something they can inhabit or use.  the Haywood gallery which is currently full of building shaped installations i.e. where art and architecture meet, must cross this trajectory of thinking somewhere down the line.  And on the other hand you could have prototyped a new business model or brand that strategic thought would have been too logical to find.  I'm no artist myself but look out for some example posts on 'artco' (I cant stop making up words at the moment) projects.

The New Substance Economy

I have been off with the flu for the more than a week which gives you plenty of time to think off the beaten track. The notion that has been occuping most of my thoughts about the future of branded companies is the revolutionary affect that climate change will have on business. To try to think ahead about what the innovations are that will offer the win wins that are needed i.e. a way to do business in a sustainable way which in turn will offer a commercial advantage that will cause that company to make money and grow its goodness.

This is a big ask when so many of the ambitions of business seem to be set in opposition sustainability. The most obvious of these is the desire for producers to sell more and more of their produce with the ambition to dominate the market that they are in and with a view to opening up new markets in which to dominate in the future. There are obvious ways to make the making of things far more sustainable – it must be possible if a raw material intensive company like Innocent or M&S can make claims to be carbon neutral. If these kinds of companies do well then the model that says make more and more stuff is fine if that new product is taking share away from other products that do not work in a sustainable way. But generally this core need to shift ever greater volume is in some industries going to be challenged.  If people start to question simply consuming and disposing of things quickly and cheaply (as we must expect they will,) and also the regulations and trading efficiencies of being a company that relies on this business model become harder (as we expect they must,) then you have two very clear limitations on this way of doing business which could sweep in like wild fire in the next ten years or so. The internet was a revolution but initially it was seen simply as way to sell more and more products with greater efficiency – an extension of the normal day to day practices into a new channel. It was nothing when compared to this notion that even the basic way that most companies make money is being brought into question... that goes right to the core. So what can be done?

In the last few decades big consumer branded companies have shifted the focus away from the manufacturing side of their business which they now buy in from outside suppliers ‘just in time,’ and by the cheapest and easiest means possible, while they focus attention on marketing. This means understanding markets and consumer desires as well as trying to physically manufacture these things to create markets for those outsourced products. So if you go one step further and actually remove the product itself from the equation can it still be made to balance? Common sense would say not but if you think about it the idea of a company that focuses on services and consumer experiences rather than selling physical products is very normal.   It is also very much easier to make it work against the context of higher cost and more restricted production environments and lower consumer demand for carbon intensive products.

The idea of the experience economy is not new and there have been some things written already about the potential value of using this approach as a response to climate change, but it has not been fully adapted and expanded into this area. Nor has a framework been created to show companies how to seek out and monetise these new forms of value. There is strong research that shows that the purchase cycle of shiny new products makes people far less happy (even unhappy,) when held up against experience driven purchases. Branded companies who unlock this new type of value will by this account succeed in making their consumers more happy than those that rely on physical material based models which is in itself a compelling consumer based reason why these transitions should be successful now even before the strongest effect of a quickening climate change economy take hold.

Scoping this opportunity could be an important step to create a path to smooth this transition from the old carbon intensive physical kind of value creation to these new kinds of economic substance. I am going to have a think about what this framework would look like but at the moment it is fair to say that there are a couple of basic principles that I think will apply.

-The brand marketing function will need to take a lead in their development and execution
-They will be people centric and based on all the different types of cultural value that people can experience

But I’m sure there are more… Anyhow the ‘NEW SUBSTANCE ECONOMY’ seemed like a good name for this new kind of value.

Customization Workshop

I have become a bit addicted to customization sites (not buying them always, January and all,) and I'm pretty chuffed with the results... but then I would be.

PUMA even lets you choose the materials and has the strongest idea behind it - a 'mongolian shoe barbecue.'

Vans is more simple but cheap $50 would buy you ether of these!
There must be a little business idea in the notion that everyone wants bespoke but not everyone is creative. A customization destination could bring all the brands together, offer a tailoring service, allow people to rate designs before they bought (MTV presented a trend towards every purchase being pre-approved by the social network to avoid mistakes,) a gallery and special guest designs. Someone else will have to judge if I should be offering my services or using the service myself!