Evolution is inevitable and innovation is the answer

Based on Sean Corcoran's research and Edward Boches' blog post

In January Sean Corcoran (Forrester Research) interviewed more than 60 agency leaders, clients and media about the future of advertising, the future of advertising agencies, the impact of digital on advertising, the new consumer-control

He asked six simple questions.

• What has changed in the agency landscape in the past six months, two years, five years?
• What are the biggest challenges an agency/company faces today?
• Is there new competition from tech companies, PR agencies, and consultants?
• Has the agency/marketer relationship changed?
• What trends are emerging in agency models?
• What will (your agency name here) agency look like in two years?

And here are some findings with Edwart Boches' conclusion

It is a new world defined by technology and consumer control

• Consumers today have a complex relationship with media: it poses challenges as to how and where to engage with them
• Despite Edelman’s recent findings, Forrester insists that consumers trust consumers more than they trust brands: it means we need to mobilize fans and followers to evangelize on our behalf
• The Groundswell has gone mainstream: the consumer is now a creator/sharer/distributor; learn to harness and inspire that
• WOM reigns again: your content and the experiences you create must stimulate it
• 3.5 billion brand conversations happen every day, all of them in public: time to master the art of listening

Consumers hate most advertising

• Only 5 % agree with advertising claims: start being honest and authentic
• 50 % say brands don’t live up to advertising promises: really, start being honest and authentic
• 67 % complain there is too much advertising: forget messages, create experiences and conversation

Adaptive marketing is the new model

• Everything is powered by digital: hire digital, think digital, learn digital or die
• Real time response, as in political advertising, is the future of marketing: monitor social media regularly and get everyone a Flipcam
• It’s all about pull not push: the formula is SEO plus value equal traffic
• Addressability is here: you should be thinking versioning, customization, options
• Intelligence and analytics will drive everything: make it part of your strategy before and after creative development

Media needs to combine paid, owned and earned

• Paid: for scale and reach and speed: social can’t do everything, reach, scale and speed come from paid 
• Owned: for content, relationships, listening and co-creation: open source opportunities are everywhere so create great content, utility and apps 
• Earned: social, WOM, PR, bloggers, influencers: paid can’t do everything; you need a social and conversation strategy, not simply a presence on Facebook

Successful agencies will move well beyond campaigns

• Build campaigns PLUS platforms: you need both, Nike-plus without a brand behind has no plus
• Stop thinking in terms of audience and think about a community of participants: a brand’s consumers may be your best creative resource, or at least your best medium
• Undo unbundling: unbundled won’t work anymore: agencies need to find ways to integrate; become curators; and learn co-creation, curation, and crowdsourcing
• Embrace and master new technologies quickly: you are working on the re-invention of print ads on the iPad, right?

Clients will look for three things

• Ideas: note this does not mean messages or ads
• Interaction: engagement, connection, community, media
• Intelligence, as in you need to collect, report, analyze and predict: if you don’t have robust analytics, you’re in big trouble

This video summarizes the results well ...in a way :)



Some says this all happened too fast. Well, then here's another warning from 2001: