Where is your main competition coming from?
Competition for agencies has proliferated over the last decade. There’s the usual agency vs. agency competition of course, but within that you have various agencies claiming specialisation, and ex-agency consultants too. Then you have media agencies trying to do creative for social media, and even the media themselves (e.g. TVNZ) producing cheap ads. Then there’s the new ‘frenemies’ like Facebook and Google, who on the one hand we collaborate with brilliantly, and on the other are talking direct to the client trying to cut agencies out. And, of course, there’s the business consultancies (Accenture and Deloitte etc) now seeing an opportunity to extend their thinking into the marketing/brand/comms arena, and even executing in the digital space.
Amidst all that industry tumult, the thing that continues to set agencies apart is the incredible creative firepower we can draw on. The ability to think about a brand from head-to-toe, to step back and appreciate how a brand grows a business. To define a brand from the core, then execute it consistently across every touchpoint, from tangible user experience through to comms and beyond. The best strategic and creative talent, with the ability to build the most powerful brands to deliver real business growth, still choose to work in an agency environment. Where creativity is valued, where there is a peer group that know that brands are one of the most powerful ways to gain an unfair advantage over the competition.