And hell might freeze over
There are so many traditional advertising agencies out there in trouble and they’re all blaming the recession. However, yes times are difficult but this is a lame duck excuse. These mainly ‘traditional’ agencies totally missed the online video trend and social media is still frightening them. They keep banging on about the fragmented media landscape, how it’s impossible to reach consumers. Well frankly it’s claptrap, all they need to do is look at consumer behavior and start to believe what they are seeing; consumers are switching their media mixes towards online.
Here’s a thought… Was it God that told Pope Benedictus XVI that to touch the hard to reach ‘screenagers’ he must get his holy behind on YouTube? I like to think it was an agency, who had the vision to realize that newspapers and TV had lost their halo. Hell, even Michael Jackson and that Obama chap realised that they needed a YouTube Channel. Perhaps, if failing agencies would stop the ‘fragmented media and hard done by’ recession talk, and simply tap into the huge online trends like video and social networks, they’ll stop going bust.
I wonder how many agencies have launched online listening or conversational tracking programs yet? With large brands struggling to stay in the game, why is it, that only a pitiful 5% of them are doing this? Really, if times were not so desperate, it would be ridiculous.
Next for a major shake up, is online advertising. The online advert exchanges are starting to gain traction. If you’ve not dealt with one yet it works like this: Advertisers can buy online ads directly, it’s literally ‘I want that one’. It costs less, and it’s damn easy. So if you are an online sales rep, start thinking about a new career path today.
The real problem for agencies is that if you’re playing catching up you’re not looking to the future. If you fall off or were never on the ‘merry go round’ it’s getting damn hard to get back on. So what of the future? Well it appears to us that ‘proper marketing’ is having a renaissance. Understanding consumer behavior is back in fashion (as if it ever was out of fashion), however the tools are now awesome.
Looking to the future and it’s going to about powerful databases of consumers likes, interests, click behavior and buying behavior. With a little more imagination and some eCRM technology, publishers will be serving relevant ads to relevant consumers depending on their database profile. To achieve this level of consumer insight the collection of data has already begun and that’s a fact.
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