The big agencies might be in trouble.
Mark Read leaving WPP. The DDB name fizzling out of existence. WPP issuing a profits downgrade and tanking their shares. This has been a long time coming.
It's an opportunity though. Not an easy one, but one of two things has to happen:
1) The big groups and their agencies will have to learn to fight. Medium-sized agencies have been doing this forever. The big guys enjoy invitations to pitch, a healthy network of their former colleagues, and a formalised procurement process that handily excludes the medium-sized agencies that would keep them honest. They'll need to realise that their bloated fixed costs are no longer a feature. Marble-floored reception areas, shiny glass towers, in-house baristas - these are things that any iota of self-awareness would have eradicated two decades ago. If the big guys behaved like the best small/medium agencies, they'd never have got here. They need to understand that using AI tools, even the costly, enterprise-level ones, is more useful to help smaller competitors outdo them than it is to make themselves more profitable. And that every time they make redundancies or let an agency fade out of their group and of existence, one more procurement team spots it. They are in trouble, and I don't believe for a moment that most of them know what to do.
2) The medium-sized agencies will need to learn to sell the sheer value of the outcomes they cause and its incredible value. And stop selling processes, because everyone's got those. The bloated, huge agencies have been selling processes forever. Big clients are exhausted by them. If they're going to risk (which, remember, is now a smaller risk than sticking with the imploding network agency world) working with someone smaller, they need to understand what the medium-sized agency can make happen for them. If they work with you for 18 months, what will they have in month 19 that they didn't have in month 1? They have an opportunity, and I don't believe for a moment that most of them know what to do.
I wrote a talk that I never managed to find a way to deliver earlier this year. It was called "Your genius is not enough". It's never been truer. These huge prospects with reduced (but still HUGE) budgets aren't looking for hyperbole. They're looking for a commercially sensible supplier that can make a commercial difference. They've seen the big players fail to sustain their own business, and they need suppliers with fire and fight. You’ve got to mean it. Smaller agencies do.
So if you've got a secret list of blue-chip companies you've always felt too small to hit, then get on with it. Write a letter. Send a LinkedIn DM. Get in their face. Call us. We can help get you in their faces.
And if you're one of the many huge agency bosses who've turned me down for growth advice over the years, let's talk again. I've been saying this is coming for a long time. I was politely asked to leave one HUGE ad agency office near London Bridge, told I was too small to understand their market by a HUGE PR agency's Manchester office, and patronised by a Commercial Director about my lack of "big agency nous" which, let us be clear, is entirely made up as is being proved, live, right in front of us, right now.
If you want to talk to us about getting your agency’s positioning and proposition sorted, book a slot with me now: https://calendly.com/steve-spongenb/steve-20-30-min-call
Wanna see some of the news about this stuff for yourself:
https://www.ft.com/content/156c0d11-9176-4f52-84b4-dd23b2d6a44a?utm_source=spongenb.com