As AI reshapes the marketing industry, only fully-embedded agencies are future-proof

AI has brought about so many positive changes to the way we work. Automating manual tasks has freed up more time for employees to focus on the work that means the most to them, promoting efficiency. The agency of the future will embrace these benefits of AI. More importantly, it will also understand that because of rapid changes in new technologies, clients have changing expectations and expect their agencies to stay one step ahead.

We’ve advanced from using technology to perform our mundane, manual tasks, to using it to augment our daily lives. This only increases the importance of human skill.

Getting future-ready: The ‘fully-embedded’ approach

Clients no longer require the same ‘traditional’ solutions. They want to know how their businesses will stand the test of time by future-proofing their workforces.

One way of achieving this is to adopt a fully-embedded approach to client work. Have you ever worked at your client’s offices? Try it – you may become part of conversations that you otherwise would have missed out on. It’s impossible to understand what it really means to work somewhere unless you actually do it. With the nature of work shifting, we agencies need to see what work our clients are expected to do.

Secondments and alliances seem like a thing of the past, but many of the future ways of working adopt the very principles of this model: bringing agencies and clients closer together. Having agencies fully embedded into the client’s organization and strategy will only strengthen their understanding of each other’s worlds and improve outputs.

I’ve seen the benefits of this first-hand with some of our account teams at Zone. Working with the BMW Group initially started off as a marketing project in 2017, where the team provided strategic direction, creative guidance, and marketing materials for BMW’s retailer network. Once the team got to work, they realized that there was a wider opportunity: access to integrated data to build an effective marketing plan. They then worked with BMW to identify what was needed and provide analytical capabilities to overcome this, widening our remit to be able to share relevant insights.

Being fully embedded in the work with BMW Group helped to understand exactly what was missing and what needed to be done to carry out our campaign. Being fully embedded in their strategy enabled us to look for gaps and barriers and problem-solve using different capabilities.

Skills for life

Working closely with your clients can also help to cross-pollinate skill sets. Reverse-upskilling suggests that both clients and agencies can learn from each other to broaden their skills and solve problems that they didn’t know they had. The World Economic Forum predicts that 50% of the global workforce will need to reskill by 2025. This is creating new operating models as organizations look at the work to be done and making key strategic talent decisions on that basis (‘buy, build, borrow, bot’).

More organizations are now embedding learning into role design to ensure that their workforce is future-ready. Unilever is a great example of a company that has recognized the need for lifelong learning and implemented an internal talent marketplace, using AI to match individuals with roles, projects and mentors across the business. Not only does this improve talent mobility and engagement of; it also ensures better utilization of the company’s workforce and their skills.

As technology continues to augment our lives, taking on more tasks and ‘work’, organizations must re-think their operating models. To become resilient, they must become true partners with their client, living their strategy and culture, while embedding a culture of lifelong learning within their own workforce.