All together now: The new integrated agency model is no longer a power struggle of creative vs media
To integrate or not to integrate? It’s one of those questions agencies navel-gaze about regularly. These days, though, it’s not so much a question as an increasingly savvy answer. An answer on how to make a client’s stretched out budget work even harder. And, not surprisingly in these days of ever-more necessary ROI, there’s a new integration model in town.
Bill Jones
But first, let’s briefly remind ourselves the various models we’ve already tried out for size.
We started with the ad agency spawning the media department. Media ended up disgruntled at being seen as an ad man’s afterthought and went off to set up its own specialist shop. Then agency heads, wanting a bigger slice of the client’s marketing budget, saw the commercial sense in bringing everything back together under one roof. But integrated campaigns still tended to be channel-centric – spreading the same message and creative across all media, whether it worked or not. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t. And so, logically, the next step was a move towards the more effective strategy-led integrated campaign.
Now, the new integration model isn’t led by advertising or by media. But by both, with digital media added to the mix, too. The ever-increasing digitisation of both the sector and our age is the biggest driving force behind changing the old models forever. Consumers are no longer just consumers. Their active participation in news-sharing means they are also media owners and creators. This duel role and the convergence of new media channels means we need to stop thinking about the strategy and the channel and start with the basic business objective and robust audience data – what do we need to say, who do we need to say it to and, crucially, what proof do we have that this is the best way to say it? It’s only then we can be sure of engaging the right audiences, in the right way, with the best ROI.
And so the new integrated model is no longer a power struggle of creative versus media. It’s a more bottom-up approach, led by the new consumer. It’s more of a team of specialists all under one roof, coming together as and when necessary. For it to work well, there needs to be a strong challenger culture in place. Is the client really maximising every single marketing channel and opportunity, via every discipline?
In addition, the agency needs to have a strong information-sharing culture. You absolutely can’t work in silos. Watercooler moments of inspiration between different team members need to be institutionalised more than ever before into the solution-neutral territory of a boardroom table which can regularly accommodate best practice thoughts. And so, in that sense, this new style of integration is going against the current trend for remote working. Remote working just equals remoter integrated client solutions.
In essence, the new integrated agency is a bit like a great band. Sometimes they’ll do their own solos. Other times they’ll play together, taking turns at centre stage, to make better music. But always, the listener is at its heart.
Bill Jones is CEO of TTMV