Indiantelevision.com Team

(9 February 2008 5:00 pm)

MUMBAI: Forrester Research believes that ad agencies of today are not well-structured to tackle tomorrow's marketing challenges and need to move from making messages to establishing community connections, says adweek.com.

In a new report, the research firm gives a dismal view of the current state of advertising, which it believes is in "a world of hurt" because consumers are tuning out the messages the industry is bent on producing. It suggests shops be organised around communities, not disciplines. Pushing messages would give way to encouraging voluntary engagement, and ongoing conversations would replace time-based campaigns.

"I can't say there's an agency now that's the agency of the future," adweek.com quoted Peter Kim, a Forrester Research analyst and co-author of the report, as saying.

According to Forrester, a simple fact is driving the need for change in how advertising agencies are structured: consumers increasingly do not trust marketing messages. Instead, they rely on advice from friends and others in their various communities to make product decisions, while using tech tools to tune out ad messages they deem irrelevant.

"I don't think agencies are going away," said Kim. "They're going to be the ones that help marketers to communities of mutual interest."

He envisions agencies composed of community members - moms, for instance, helping Procter & Gamble play a constructive role in communities of other mothers.

Since marketers will continue to focus on results from their marketing, especially as digital media makes it easier to track, advertising agencies would get geekier, Forrester believes.

In spite of these changes, creative and media agencies are still built on the mass model, says Forrester. Digital agencies have gone farther, in Forrester's estimation, in centering their businesses on "interaction," but the firm finds them lacking in the branding skills of traditional shops.

Clients are finding their agencies wanting. Forrester quotes one marketing executive calling agencies "a necessary evil," rather than a strategic partner to grow his business. Another complains, "Most senior ad execs appear more comfortable with conventional channels, which they claim are 'integrated' because they have tacked on a website."

"The first step [agencies] need to take is with digital integration," Kim said, adding that the organisation of agencies around specific skill sets is the root of their problems.