Consultants are not the enemy!

There has been a lot of talk about the consultancy / creative agency dynamic.

Most of it is from the creative community, to the creative community. Apparently, we are to keep a weather eye out for big consultancies like Deloitte, who plan to snap up creative agencies and step into our territory. How dare they?

The reality? The big four consultancies are stepping into the creative territory aggressively, and rightfully so. They have the C-suite connections, the influence to change organizational structures and the technical knowledge to implement complex systems.

Here’s my take on the whole situation: they are not a threat to the agencies. In fact this is good for us. If anything, they help us re-focus.

Allow me to explain.

Our mandate as marketing agencies is to drive sales. Period. We’ve traditionally done that using creativity, and media, and more recently, technology and data sciences.

So if you recognize that in this business creativity is just a tool to increase sales, you’re well positioned to move upstream and you should be able to hold your own against consultants. You just have to focus. Or re-focus.

This means including business-minded talent in your hiring policy, changing the conversations with your clients to take you upstream, and most importantly, focusing on fusing creativity and business. Not just selling the next big idea! Another excerpt from the same article:

“The big consultancies are underestimating the value of creativity [and] the agencies are under- exploiting the value of business analytics,” said Ivan Pollard, senior VP-strategic marketing at Coca-Cola Co. “Someone’s going to crack that soon because data plus creativity is the future.”

But! If your mindset is creativity for creativity’s sake — or for the sake of awards and accolades — then yes, you should be worried. You won’t be able to provide the same value as top-line consultants.

In other words, this new world will force us to go back to being marketers again. And by the way, that applies for a small agencies working with smaller client just the same as global shops.

-from Madison Avenue Manslaughter

Related posts:

Since the use of smoke signals, flags and flashing mirrors in the pre — historic period, Wireless communication has been a part of human life and it is continuously evolving. Modern Wireless…

Super exited to visit NOAH Conference London in November 2016. Noah conference is invite-only, leading industry event for the European internet ecosystem and C-level executives. A lot of insides…

The African elephant has the largest ears of any animal on the planet. This superlative, however, has utility beyond just aesthetics. Unlike humans, elephants cannot depend on sweat to cool them…