Ad Age just released a piece asking if the industry needed big digital agencies anymore. It ended with a quote from Seth Solomons, CMO for Digitas: "I think big, costly and slow is not something clients are looking for."
There is an interesting sub-text in the article that is even more interesting. Beyond the easy attack of large agencies being slow to maneuver (It's hard to steer the Titanic), there is the other context of sub-contracting. Most of the time we hear it as a partnership, but it tends to be a vendor relationship at best. The rationale behind this is actually something quite funny. Ever heard this before: "I know enough to be dangerous and can handle the meeting, but I bring the real experts in when needed?"
That statement has evolved into a business model for a lot of agencies. Hiring the general contractor (so to speak) to breeze through a client meeting, and bring in the experts to do the plumbing, electrical work, etc. Not a bad model if you're building a house. But this model doesn't work for digital marketing. And here's why--a general contractor is great to execute on the architectural plans that have been made for them. Going with the general contractor as your agency assures you that the strategy (the blueprints) will be mediocre at best. Just enough to be dangerous.
Where does this leave those agencies, then? They are becoming middle-men. And what's interesting about being a middle-man in digital marketing is that digital is all about removing the middle-man. The technology is there to allow for 1-1 conversations, to allow for savvy architects to handle the multiple experts, to give the tools and crowdsourcing to make the general contractor irrelevant.
And let's not mention that the world of digital moves so fast that it would be like completely re-learning plumbing every other month.
So can you blame the big brands of the world from going straight to the smart agencies? Cutting out that guy that knows just enough in the client meeting to bringing in the real expert? It's an added layer (read: expense) that they don't need any more.
What they need is a smart architectural firm. An agency that knows the intricacies, all the ins and outs, and how it all comes together into one picture. Someone that says "I know enough to make this program sing and will make the meeting really productive and efficient."
I envision those firms then outsourcing (I mean partnering) with the larger agencies to knock out the production. It's puts the current model on it's head. But it's so crazy it just might work.
Now to find a good general contractor to help us pull the whole thing off....
