The recent publication of a FastCompany piece "The Future of Advertising" has seen the online platforms abuzz with ideas. The #adfuture hashtag generates tweets aplenty and theories abound covering everything from new payment and reward models, to technology-driven, totally-automated agencies, like a manufacturing conveyor belt with campaigns rolling off on to the palettes.
In trying to reach this future, some executives are leaving their comfort blankets (cashmere of course) to form a new venture that is leaner, meaner and execution-focused. The traditional big players are crafting new offerings in steps redolent of their first introduction of a digital arm, or farming off their media buying. After all agencies have frequently grown to XXL size and then decided to shed the excess weight before piling the pounds back on in a yo-yo dieting style.
These approaches all tend to one error - they're creating the agency in the eyes of the agency. The physician is healing itself and not worrying if the cure is palatable for the patients. But what does the client want? Forrester deduced that the future of agency relationships relied on ideas, interaction, and intelligence. Now there isn't an agency in existence that would suggest it wasn't strong on ideas, but if the client starts to drill down, they will soon realise that they need to consider just how that ideas process is working for them. Are they realising the new ROI - Return on Ideas - or are they still paying for more fat and seeing less meat.
The large networks point to the fact that with implementation crossing far more platforms than ever before, whether it's targeted video advertising, exploiting new and social media, or the use of bespoke technology to deliver a more engaging consumer experience, their collective expertise will deliver more to the client and their customers. The small boutique, the niche that held its head up so high as clients demanded specialist support, is now fighting its place again as it struggles to cover all the requested bases. More routes to market mean the old word and old world of integrated, the craving for full service, start to enter the heads of the marketing team again.
So is the CMO tempted by the large agency to come to terms with all the new goods on offer; or still enamoured with the more personal and tailored boutique. Having rebelled against a large agency in the search for the perfect fit, is he going to be forced to return to address all the new possibilities?
What if you could create the large agency with collective expertise to cover these needs, but avoidance of excess? Large in what it delivers to clients, but lean in how it works? Where creativity is the focus, where ideas are in abundance? Where the idea drives the implementation and not the reverse? Would that satisfy the marketing client? And what of the agency itself? How is it to satisfy its creative teams when the suggestion is that the new platforms make it easy for everyone to do their job?
In a world where collaboration is a key driver for most companies, where enlightened companies like Proctor and Gamble have opened up their NPD to outside ideas, crowdsourcing has the potential to challenge and conquer the traditional agency model by generating ideas and mechanics based on client need, not agency specialism. Not only does it give more to clients, but it's also a potential solution for the smaller boutique agencies to become part of a larger and more valuable whole. And it allows creative experts to bring their creative skills to the forefront again in a more freeform structure.
The agency of the future isn't a greedy network relying on its size to convince its clients, but a collaborative collective of the best people, ideas, implementations and interactions run to the convenience of the client and to the benefit of the brand. Like an IT team switching to the cloud for its flexibility of delivery and infrastructure, a marketing team switching their campaign requirements to the crowd gives them infinite elasticity. Client or creative, it's time to join the crowd, buy and sell ideas and implementations and see your brand and business grow.
This article was first published on the Blur Group blog: http://www.blurgroup.com/blog/crowdsourcing/ideas-for-sale-%E2%80%93-join-the-crowds-on-black-friday