Agency structures need to change: The Drum Agency Business Awards 2018 finalists revealed
It’s not enough for agencies to ask, ‘how do we do less with more’, they need to ask how they can re-create working structures better optimised for the new working realities of the 21st century, according to The Fawnbrake Collective’s founder, Amelia Torode, and the chair of The Drum Agency Business Awards.
Agency structures need to change: The Drum Agency Business Awards 2018 finalists revealed
At a time when we are all talking about the bloated agency structures and business models that reflect their own interests and not those of their clients, judge and head of multicultural business/special projects at Sky, Debarshi Pandit said: “That process [the change] has already been initiated and if you look at the recent sweeping changes across WPP starting with Y&R becoming an enlarged YMLY&R, the birth of Wavemaker you get the picture. Agencies have to get rid of bureaucracy and structures and give way to being nimbler and faster.”
The finalists for the Business Development category include: Creative Drive, 4 Roads Ltd, Dawson Andrews, Evoluted and Impero.
Meanwhile, Bacardi global head of brand PR and corporate communications, Lisa Jeden added that consumers and customers are demanding a new, more direct relationship with businesses, brands and institutions and being part of the cultural conversation is critical to their success.
She said: “The biggest shift is away from telling your brand story and towards finding ways to be part of the story.
"If agencies can help clients transcend their category and product to do things in culture, they will create more meaningful and interesting roles and deeper connections with their audiences, in turn driving greater brand loyalty that leads to sales.”
Finalists in the Client Service category are: BWP Group, Croud, Hydra Creative, IDHL Group, Kazoo Communications, Realia and Polygon, RocketMill, Stack, Stickeyes, Space and Time Media, This is XYZ and Xigen
Torode concluded: “Culture is the oil that makes the model move so bad culture or no culture, no model and no movement. Culture is at the heart. You'll see that in the agencies that we have cited as winners.”
A full list of the nominees can be found here. Tickets for the awards ceremony on 27 November at the Marriott Grosvenor Square, London, can be purchased now.