May 23, 2006
cultural transformation etc
From The Hughtrain:
THOUGHT: the future of advertising is clients increasingly asking their agencies to help re-invent not just their brands, but their actual companies. The future is agencies being increasingly unable to deliver on this.
Out of this wreckage a new industry will emerge…
I’m still not sure what to call this new industry, but spending the last few days working at Swisscom gave me a glimpse.
The phrase I can’t get out my head is “Cultural Transformation”.
[Note To Self:] It’s interesting being paid to talk about what you actually know about, as opposed to what you pretend to know about.
I know what you mean, dude! (That’ll be ten quid, please.)
Blue skies
love
Roy
Nice one Hugh; I’ve been thinking the same thing. Namely, corporate social responsibility, sustainability, ethical treatment of staff and such becoming buzzworthy and capable of generating copious amounts of free PR (cf American Apparel), companies are going to want in on that game. But very few truly ethical, sustainable, socially responsible businesses exist as yet. If being a “good” company has PR currency, someone’s going to have to help the companies figure out how to be genuinely, more deeply likeable before they can promote themselves as such and cash in.
I also remember a time when agencies were merging everybody fussed around worrying whether or not they could be as good collectively at digital, print, outdoor, direct mail etc. and I have heard very few horror stories resulting from the many mergers.
That said, cultural transformation is a profound subject to consider and can only, surely, come from within the organisation?
How many people have been p*ssed off at a sharp-suited account director telling the client he is wrong or is doing something wrong?
Imagine now being told that the way you run your business is now wrong?
For me, part of the cultural transformation is admitting you want to do it…then plan how you can integrate it into your business without hacking everybody off in the process.
The business owners are in a better position than anyone to communicate the change to emplyees NOT an agency!
I agree with Paul — it’s an internal thing, it can’t be an expensive bolt-on. We’ve been here already in the late 90s when media agencies tried to move into strategy consulting.
I concur with John and Paul…
Hmm. But then, if you concur with John and Paul, what are you really saying?
Agencies need to help clients *be* rather than merely *present themselves as*. And yet, attempts by agencies to be strategy consultants or to advise clients what to do, fail.
So what does the poor agency do?
I used to have similar problems as a software developer who understood the internet better than my clients back in the 90s. I was always trying to encourage them to open up and use the technology for two-way communication with their viewers, and they were always worried about how to avoid negative comments and how to make users pay for as much content as possible.
There’s nothing more frustratng than *knowing* your client is strategically wrong, but because you’re not being paid to advise strategically, having your opinion ignored.
How does someone in this position break out of their perceived pigeonhole?
“So what does the poor agency do?”
Answer: Work harder, for less money. Lucky them.
Huh?
Q : how do you expand out of a pigeonhole to have your strategy advice taken more seriously?
A : be cheaper.
Hugh, surely you don’t mean this?