5 new challenges for Brands

2 years ago this month the IPA published 'The Future of Advertising and Agencies: A 10-Year Perspective' in which it said that agencies had to adapt or die. It said that agencies will need to take on multiple roles such as: agency as media brand owner; agency as joint venture partner; agency as content collaborator; agency as programme producer; agency as network creator; agency as data provider; and agency as data aggregator.

The last 2 years have shown that this prediction is coming true. The increased fragmentation in media and greater control and involvement that consumers have with media has lead to the following fundamental changes in the things brands need from communications;

1) Actions not just words
2) Communities and Advocates
3) Connections rather than media
4) Long term activity rather than campaign mentality
5) Brand cohesion rather than consistency

1) Actions not just words
There is much said about the fact that brands are moving from monologue to dialogues with consumers. But we feel that the reality is in fact a step further. The growth in opportunity and desire to interact with brands means that brands need, more than ever, to involve people in their actions (both online and offline). This makes it even more important to integrate experiential and sales promotion activity (brand doings) with advertising (brand sayings).

1) Communities and Advocates
As consumers find it easier to form large communities (enabled by online), it becomes more efficient and measurable to influence the key influences in these communities and make them advocates to spread your brand message. This makes expertise in social media and online PR more important.

3) Connections rather than media
Interruptive media will reduce as a percentage of media consumed by people (as user generated media consumption increases and people gain greater control over their media through things like ad-skipping technology). This increases the importance of using brand “Trojan Horses” – imbedding the brand into the editorial content. This means agencies must have knowledge of branded content.

4) Long term activity rather than campaign mentality
As we generate activity that interacts and involves consumers, we must respect their involvement. This doesn’t mean only being active when we want to – people don’t think in terms of campaigns. Once we start a relationship with a consumer, we must be prepared to continue that relationship. This is where expertise in one-to-one relationship marketing becomes essential. This isn’t a new development. A study of more than 880 IPA Papers found that campaigns which included a range of more personal, below-the-line channels, in addition to above-the-line channels, were 25 percentage points more effective than those with ATL alone. (Marketing in the Era of Accountability, IPA dataMINE 2007)

5) Brand cohesion rather than consistency (Richard Huntingdon)
“Matching luggage” is now looked down upon in favour of “true integration”. This has been very well described by Mark Chippendale (media director at News Group Media); “True integration guides people on a brand journey across platforms, rather than simply delivering a common message whenever a consumer alights serendipitously upon the advertising”. Brands can afford to have some flex in look/ feel/ message as long as the different elements of the campaign are working hand in hand to guide people through the customer journey. This makes it even more important to understand the total customer journey through “uber planners” (like Alison Wight) and cross channel data (like Fuel’s).


All these requirements are driven in part by the digitalization of our business and 21st-century life. Their solutions also all have digital components. It would appear that clients are beginning to realize this. There is a growth of digital departments and budgets returning into the main marketing function (this started even before the recession hit). This means that the budgets aren’t siloed and that marketing departments are beginning to look to their traditional agencies to deliver these requirements (rather than their digital agencies).

But even then clients face a dilemma as Nick Howarth (group chief executive, Clemmow Hornby Inge) identifies: “They recognise the advantages of working with a single agency with one bottom line, which has specialists to give the best advice across channels; a single agency that is responsive, quick and efficient. However, they're also wary of the one-stop shop and beguiled by the idea of a collection of best in class agencies.”

In the UK we are moving closer to the situation in the US, where a third of all clients said they are concentrating all (or most) of their comms in a single agency holding company (ANA client survey 2008). So how good are agencies in providing what clients will increasingly need?