DISQUS

Ian Sohn · 4 months ago

Alan: This is dead on. You nailed it. The 360 model only works when someone - and I propose it's someone who is paid a flat fee as to keep them impartial to any single discipline - acts as the GC.

I've been preaching this since I started at an agency, for about 2 years now. You have captured my sentiment as well, if not better than I could have captured it myself.

Well done!

shawnfreeman · 4 months ago

Absolutely agree.

I've lived this one from numerous angles (e.g. lead tv/print agency, digital agency; and as client) and if If there is not someone in the marketing organization with responsiblity to assure that all the agencies integrate and work together, it will rarely happen if left in agencies hands.

bbmarketingplus · 4 months ago

Sure, here I am :-) This is what I do for my clients. I've been planning to write a blog post on this very subject.

Nowhere is the need greater than when launching a website. More and more, companies expect websites to do it all: shorten their sales cycle, serve their customers, attract press attention through the blog and prospective customers/clients via SEO.

In short, most companies lead with tactics for the very reasons you cite--the fox is in charge of the proverbial chicken house. Rare is the company that begins with a comprehensive strategy that pinpoints the company's most promising prospects, provides clear concise value propositions for each prospect--at every stage of the buying process, or engages communicators to write in clear, compelling English rather than using passive voice or jargon. Instead, many hire "full service" agencies that excel in one discipline or another--and miss opportunities that they might otherwise have discovered and exploited.

Oh well.

Even more rare is the company that invests in upfront research to confirm hypotheses about how prospects' prefer to buy

nicolaes · 4 months ago

You quite simply need a me! That’s what we do at Lime Cube Marketing. Funny how this post is so relevant to our company. I started the foundations of my career in media with a communications degree then I went in to advertising and worked with a small agency that grew and was eventually bought by Ogilvy. I took a break, had a baby and went to help my husband part time in Architectural services for a couple of years. Long story short - now back full circle in marketing and find ourselves putting together the structure, planning and bringing in specially selected people where required. We are four months in and winning new business. When I was in the agency at the beginning of my career my team all dreaded the “collaboration” because the client never took the lead role. That's what we're doing today. Wish me luck.

mrhames · 4 months ago

I see two options:

1. To use your metaphor, why can't it fall upon the home builder to manage the players? In this instance, the AOR will need to manage the players, rein them in, and ensure that everything stands together.

Okay. I'm not naive enough to think this is simply going to happen, egos being egos and whatnot.

However, and this brings me to #2, I think that the silos are actually the problem. They create the need of a general contractor, so instead of adding a function, why not eliminate silos?

If the plumber and the carpenter are on the home builders staff, then all the 500K goes to them anyway.

So a full service agency consolidated at the bottom line would forgo the need for a General Contractor.

And I just happen to know one of them, which is why I love where I'm at. :)

nicolaes · 4 months ago

I love the idea of a full service agency but feel strongly that you can't be Number One at everything.

There are so many disciplines that come together what do you do the best? Focus on that and bring in the best to do the rest?

Nicola

Chris · 4 months ago

I am quite interesting to see where this leads..

Alan Wolk · 4 months ago

Thanks for the comments all.

@Ian - flat fee definitely a good idea

@Shawn - thanks for your comments on Twitter as well: agree that it's the rare AOR that will act impartially

@bbmarketing - very true about websites. So much involved and so little effort expended up front to make sure that the assumptions are correct.

@Nicola - good for you for making the transition. Best of luck - it sounds like you've taken the right path.

@Matt H -Agreed, but... many clients, larger ones, in particular, want "best of breed" (their term, not mine) - they want to use a variety of vendors and most agencies still are not set up to do everything or they have a particular specialty and have built out B-level competency in other areas. So until the jack-of-all-trades model becomes more common, I think we need a solution

@Chris- me too

One additional thought, inspired by Helen Klein Ross (aka AdBroad) - maybe we need an architect- the strategist, who hires a GC, which is more of a production role, to keep everything moving on track. May be adding an extra layer, but then again, someone's got to be in charge of budgets and timelines and all that.

David Burn · 4 months ago

Ha! I'm coming off a nutty experience where my former agency was assigned to execute a "partner" agency's strategy. The only problem with that was the client failed to say where creative belonged, under strategy or execution. Naturally, we felt it belonged under execution, just like our partner agency felt that it belonged under strategy. So both agencies developed their own strategies and creative, although we ultimately executed against what was mostly our strategy and creative. A waste of resources is what it was. A shit show. Either way, it could have been cleared up with one simple directive from the client, but that would have forced the client's hand and no one had the balls for that.

HelenKleinRoss · 4 months ago

Great game-changing idea, Alan. I've worked mostly on agency side and have been in those meetings where (surprise,surprise) recommmended campaign budget is largely doled out to AOR. Perhaps what we need are Brand Architects. New job description. Hired by brands to design and oversee creation and maintenance of brand story. Best candidates are probably not inhouse marketing folks, but renegades from agency side, trained to orchestrate and deliver work product from various disciplines. Who'd have the vision, creative chops and (key point) incentive to blueprint a structure that's best for the brand.

Dion Hughes · 4 months ago

wouldn't it be nice?
some of the more switched on marketers are getting there... but even from their point of view, i've heard and observed that their own internal battles are very tough to keep from spilling out into their partner communities.
so much complexity. so much potential. and also so much that can't be done because of politics. like jay chiat once said about his failed attempts at re-inventing the workplace "it would have worked if it hadn't been for human nature".

tjcnyc · 4 months ago

Alan, this is a great idea and very much needed.

Truly integrated marketing is an enormous challenge for marketers, for three reasons:

1) Brand marketers are so overloaded with trade issues, innovation programs etc etc that it's difficult to get a grip on the full range of tactical possibilities in communication (never mind a strategic overview for their deployment).

2) The rapid pace of change makes it nearly impossible for any brand marketer to understand all of the sub-specialties in any depth. This is the disease that leads to "shiny-object syndrome" -- I don't know what it is, but get me one of those.

3) It's extraordinarily difficult for marketers who have been hugely successful as experts to embrace the idea that they can't be experts in everything anymore.

Even if you can get there, these challenges add up to a larger challenge: who can you trust? Does the general contractor you're hiring fully understand the range of choices that are available? Is he or she equally prone to "shiny-object syndrome"? Does the general contractor really have the brand's interests at heart?

And ultimately, is the general contractor a true director who adds value and finds speed and cost-savings? Or is he or she simply a coordinator who passes email from one subject matter expert to another?

Also, we all begin our careers as specialists and many of us never quite get over our first love. Can someone who grew up as a digital marketer shift budget away from digital to (gasp! scandal!) dinosaur media like newspaper if that's what the communication problem demands?

Perhaps I am biased because I now work on the client side. But in my opinion, the general contractor works best when the contractor is a company employee.

The contractor needs an intimate understanding of what drives results for the company, the goals and values of the managers internally, the company's appetite for risk and definitions of reward, etc etc.

Having worked as an insider and an outsider, my experience is that a smart outsider can develop a very rich understanding of the business issues and offer smart counsel, but only an insider gets to understand the cultural and emotional core of the company.

When we're talking about change (and what you suggest is a big and necessary change), getting the cultural and emotional stuff is required before real progress can be made.

Please forgive my long-winded comment: your post is on a subject that I've been thinking a lot about for the past eight years.

Tom Kasperski · 4 months ago

Good post. I'm currently writing an extended piece on this very subject.

I see several obstacles to changing the status quo:
1. CMOs don't think they have a need for a GC, because they believe their brand managers are already doing this work, and more importantly, capable of doing this work.
2. Brands compensate their agencies for producing stuff. The GC model can only work if the GC is discipline agnostic and receives no compensation for production or media.
3. Many big AORs - those who claim to be "full service", "360", "multi-disciplined", "integrated", have successfully buffaloed their clients into believing they are capable of playing GC. As I mentioned in pt. 2, the compensation model for agencies suggested this is a bad idea.

I'm not fully on-board with your top-down recommendation: "telling all the sub-contractors who does what and when...Assigning tasks..."

I would want a Marketing GC to do much more. The GC should have the lead role in selecting agencies, foster agency collaboration in ideation and strategy dev., and managing a compensation model that rewards performance. The GC should be the BM's consigliere and marcom fiduciary, but also an advocate for agencies.

It would be a tough job, but a job that isn't currently being done.

Jeff Vinick · 4 months ago

Great article Alan. As you know many (o.k., some) of us have been expanding the breadth of of our experience. Traditional agency background, where strategy and branding rule, combined with interactive experience where tactics and technology currently reign is essential. Add some business acumen and you've got your GC. I think the position should be on the client side or an independent consulting position. The official title might be Cat herder, but it is a very necessary position.

Alan Wolk · 4 months ago

Trying to do justice to many thoughtful comments here:

@DavidBurn: Always glad when someone provides anecdotal evidence in support of the proposition I've just laid out. Thanks.

@Helen Ross Klein: Agree about Brand Architects with GCs as part of the offering.

@Dion: The role may just happen organically as someone needs to take control of the chaos. New and smarter companies will likely fill the role internally, though an external company that acts as a consultant may work too.

@TJC: What you call "long-winded" I call an excellent supplement and further exposition of the theory. Agree wholeheartedly with pretty much every word you've written here. If there are outsiders involved, it's going to be because internal politics preclude someone from inside the company from filling that role. Biggest division I see now is that PR is handled by Corporate Communication while Marketing handles everything else. And they all need to work together.

@Tom K: More good stuff- your rationale is dead on. Was not suggesting that telling people what to do and when to do it was the sole role the GC should fill, but rather to suggest that some sort of production management capability was needed. Agree that there needs to be more thought leadership and strategic thinking involved. Less about being agency advocate than idea advocate, though those will often wind up being one and the same.

@Jeff V: Cat Herder is very apt job title. I think the sort of person you describe is exactly what's needed for the role. The production management aspects can be an adjunct (e.g. a separate person who reports in to the GC) but that role is very important- everything's got to work on the same schedule and if there are a dozen agencies/vendors involved, that's a full time job

Michael Maurillo · 4 months ago

This has created a great discussion, so it's hard for me to actually add much beyond what has already been debated, but I can absolutely agree from experience that this role (when done right) would add value to the process. Playing the digital-partner role, I worked closely with the traditional AOR on a major CPG client that assumed the "brand navigator" position for all of their brands. This was implemented for the exact reasons that TJCNYC mentioned in his comment - the BMs didn't have the time to make the necessary commitment that the role required, and in most cases, didn't have the experience/skill to do it well. Hence, the AOR stepped in and it did not work for all the reasons already stated here. Actually we, as the digital agency, were assigned the 'brand navigator' role on a couple of brands due to the emphasis they had on the digital channel. While that was great for us, it actually contradicted the whole point of the navigator role (agnostic and all).

To be completely honest, as an agency guy I think this role should exist on the client side. In order for that to work, IMO it would need to be someone in addition to the BM on the business AND quite possibly someone that comes from agency side bringing experience from working on multiple brands and mediums.

But until that happens, I have a question for you Alan (and others), is the GC role more suited for a freelance-type consultant or can the service be provided as part of a strategy-focused agency? I'm thinking of the Naked's and Anomaly's of the world. I ask bc it sounds like all those advocating here for the agency-side version of the GC are describing a gun-for-hire type person, not another agency to add to the mix.

Alan Wolk · 4 months ago

@Mike: I think it would likely be a gun-for-hire (or a couple of guns
- maybe one strategy-focused person and one production-focused- but
certainly not a whole agency.)

And while I agree that the role is ideally something the client should
create internally, many companies don't have the budget or the desire
to do so, hence the outsource suggestion.

Ian Sohn · 4 months ago

Michael: When I was at Nokia, Naked played this exact role. And they were good at it. Problem though is that agencies can't help but fight with each other. So I think it has to be a single person (or 2) who are ordained by the BM as the GC, and it must be emphasized they have no financial stake in the eventual media mix.

Alan Wolk · 4 months ago

Ian: Did Naked actually get involved in the execution? Or just in coming up with the strategy? I've heard conflicting reports on what they actually do. I think sticking around and overseeing the actual execution of the strategy would be as important as actually helping to come up with it.

Ian Sohn · 4 months ago

Naked were always around - a non-stop presence. They were like Consiglieres.

They don't actually "make" anything - their product is strategy and counsel.

stevepoppe · 4 months ago

Nice stuff Alan. I like your thinking. In my view, the GC should be the brand manager. S/he is responsible for the allocation of dollars by communications channel and management of the siloed entities. A great brief and branding idea will go a long way toward making the relationships work. Without -- it will, indeed, be a free-for-all.

Promotional Products · 4 months ago

Terrific article, very well said. It is difficult for multiple entities to work together if there is no leader or direction involved.

hawaiijobs44 · 3 weeks ago

I love the idea of a full service agency but feel strongly that you can't be Number One at everything. And Focus on that bring in the best to do the rest?
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