What makes a fit-for-purpose agency in 2020? by Seyoan Vela

SEYOAN VELA, EXECUTIVE CREATIVE DIRECTOR OF DUBAI-BASED LIVINGROOM, LOOKS AT WHAT’S NEEDED FOR AGENCIES TO THRIVE IN THE YEAR AHEAD

Agencies in the region – in fact I’m sure agencies everywhere – are facing tough times. The pace of change is increasing rather than decreasing, clients are expecting more for less and speed remains a dominant factor. Add to this the continual drift away from retainers to project fees and you have all the ingredients for a year of uncertainty and insecurity.

However, there are also opportunities. The Saudi Arabian economy is booming, Egypt is growing and Dubai is hosting Expo 2020. The agencies that manage to make the best of these opportunities will have a once-in-a-lifetime chance to progress to the next level. The agencies that do not will probably be left in the dust. That is the nature of evolution. It’s survival of the fittest.

So, what makes a fit-for-purpose agency in 2020? Agility and a lack of bureaucracy is key. With time being such a crucial factor, agencies that still work with 20th century systems will struggle. They will be the slow creatures that suffer a quick death. Un-necessary layers of management hinder the process, compromise creativity and add un-needed costs. It was Mark Pritchard of P&G who first openly stated that “agencies need to strip away anything that doesn’t add to creative output. The excess management, buildings and overhead”.

Agencies need to be more comfortable working closer with media, especially in this region, where they are often rivals as opposed to partners. That closer relationship between media and creative means that agencies need to have more in-house talent that is comfortable with data and analytics. Most agencies know this but are doing little to recruit the individuals with those particular skills to the industry.

By the same token, agencies are struggling to get the right type of creative talent for the demands of today’s client. Real time creatives, social media natives, conceptual creatives with animation and motion graphics talent. More than that, it’s finding how to manage the career paths of those individuals and to keep them continually motivated.

In the past it was easy to keep agency staff of all disciplines motivated as they progressed from small space press ads and radio, through outdoor to the television commercials their friends and family would see. Today’s challenge is to keep staff engaged who are doing social post after post whilst expecting them to display a level of consistent creativity that’s unrealistic and possibly unneeded if you are posting four times a week. The same staff who, if talented, will be sought after by everyone from consultancies, to tech giants to clients themselves.

In-housing is in itself a trend that seems to be gaining more and more traction in the region. Bringing more communication needs and more of an agency’s scope of work in-house. It started understandably with community management and has crept to social media and influencer strategies and seems to be continuing to grow. From new wave digital brands to old school FMCG, having in-house creative capabilities seems to be becoming the new norm.

However, when all that is said and done it becomes clear there is still one way above all others that agencies can stay relevant in 2020. For all the pressures coming from all directions in this new decade there is still one ace that good ad agencies can play that no other partner or client can play as well. And that ace is creativity. The ability to come up with great ideas is still the USP of ad agencies.

The notion that anyone can be creative did agencies a disservice. Though it sounds egalitarian and optimistic, it’s as trite as saying anyone can score a holein-one or anyone can score a penalty. Creativity has many forms and, like scoring a hole-in-one, maybe you can get lucky once and have a great creative idea. But to do it consistently, day after day, month after month against challenging client briefs and taking into consideration legalities and budget, that is and should be the specialty of an advertising agency. When it gives up that ability, it becomes like the striker that maybe contributes to the team but never scores goals. The striker that will ultimately get dropped.

By providing an environment in which creativity wants to thrive, which is difficult for clients and consultancies to do as effectively, agencies should be able to maintain the high-ground in being the instigators of ideas. They probably need to do a better job at charging for the value of those ideas but at least their role will continue to be appreciated and clearly defined.

Finally, at a slight tangent, but I feel it’s beginning to happen – agencies in the region need to once and for all stop wasting time, valuable resources and money they haven’t got chasing fake work to win irrelevant awards.

It’s been like watching turkeys voting for Christmas seeing agencies embarrassingly compete with each other for shiny bits of metal whilst failing to service their clients adequately or pay their staff properly. Then, in all innocence, now wondering where it’s all gone wrong, what the future holds and how to pay the bills.

Agencies in the region need to once and for all stop wasting time, valuable resources and money they haven’t got chasing fake work to win irrelevant awards.