Leagas Delaney’s Gareth Davies believes there is a future for the brave. For agency leaders, change is coming, but the good news, you are in control of your response.
A week or so ago, when the big holding groups posted their 2024 annual results, there seemed to be a collective industry shrug. With the exception of Publicis, the numbers were broadly underwhelming, notable only for the occasional network exec throwing one of their agencies or countries under the corporate bus. Ouch. So why the apparent apathy? Why wasn’t there a greater appetite to get into the results and understand what was going on?
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Well, firstly, not much of this will have come as a surprise to anyone. And if it’s not a surprise, then frankly, it’s not much of a story. Working in advertising over the last few years has, for many, felt like an unrelenting game of Whack-A-Mole, in which one black swan event is knocked on its head only for another one to pop up.
Old news.
The real issue is not how we deal with these events when they occur. We are, after all, a resilient bunch of firefighters. But we’re less good at tackling the deeper systemic issues. And right now, that’s a problem. As Jack Welch, the former CEO of GE, memorably advised, “Change before you have to.”
We shrug our shoulders at corporate results because we all know that we’re late to the structural change that we now have to make.
So where next?
Well, forward of course.
Change is happening and it’s being played out through high-stakes acquisitions, mergers and legacy brand consolidations, all of which are happening at a blistering pace. But it’s not only the networks that are moving. Sure, their vast scale means that their medicine is the hardest to take and the most publicly consumed.
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But don’t make the mistake of thinking that the indies will immediately benefit from any network pain (even if that is a shame for those of us who run an independent agency). Our industry was founded on a common business model, and the vast majority of agencies are still running and underpinned by these decades-old principles.
But let’s pause there for a moment.
Where’s the good news I hear you ask? Well, it’s where it always was, in our own hands.
We have a chance to reimagine how we all work, to rethink our commercial models, to reframe our value, to embrace technology’s many advantages, and to upskill our people for a different future.
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Refreshingly, that’s a future that anyone can grab. Network, indie, in-house or other, technology is fast democratizing our industry. The future will not be the sole right of the big, nor the small, for that matter. Instead, it will be won by the brave, by those who choose to transform, not just to tweak.
But how will we separate fact from fiction? After all, there’s an awful lot of AI BS out there right now.
Well, there will be signs. My personal favorite is the global agency map. A familiar slide to anyone working on a new business submission. This staple of the RFI response, nestled proudly near the front of many a deck, has long comforted clients with the promise that ‘We have people where you need them.’
But ‘so what?’
In a world in which tech will level up the playing field, slides like this should be immediate red flags to clients and agency employees alike. A reminder of slow, outdated models and symbolic of a lack of the necessary bravery to change.
And that gets us to the heart of all of this.
Our industry will be challenged by technology, but it will be changed by people. By the smart, opinionated, curious and disruptive. Those who don’t put up with lazy thinking. The battleground will be for the talent that wants to drive that change. Just as it always has been. Although today, the stakes are far higher. But then again, so are the opportunities.