Advertising agencies: is "the big idea" getting cheaper?
Posted by Mike Harris on Thu, Apr 29, 2010 @ 05:19 PM
Yikes...I may have touched a nerve with some folks in the advertising and marketing community. Harry L. posted the following comment:
Mike,
Explain to me the justification of "Creativity is practically free and CEOs/CMOs are telling us that they know it" and where I can find this "soaring" supply of free big ideas . . . I look around the marketing world and find big ideas to be in shorter supply than ever, especially big brand ideas that drive demand, interest and identification. From my POV there are fewer and fewer people in this business who are experienced enough and capable of generating big brand ideas . . . and the value/cost of those ideas is higher than ever. Looking for free ideas can't be the way to create and drive a brand forward. I'd love to hear your POV on where to find free creative that does what "just do it," "think different," "got milk," "let's motor," "drivers wanted," etc. did for those brands.
Hi Harry,
Thanks for your comment and interest in the subject. My business and marketing thinking is generally shaped by my observation of trends and what's driving those trends. A trend that's gaining ground here in California is pay-for-performance agencies. I'm aware of a new PR firm in San Diego that's raising some eyebrows, and getting clients, with that model.
I met with the founder and I believe his firm is the real deal. Could pay-for-performance advertising and marketing be the next big step? I'm hearing a decent amount of buzz about it and I'm now offering many marketing services, including PR, that are billed by the project...not by the hour. Once I can build a track record of performance I can use predictive modeling to allow me to offer PFP marketing services...and I will.
I appreciate the famous tag lines you quoted. I believe it's wonderful when an agency can deliver such exceptional value. My observation is simply that, today, agencies aren't the only choice for creativity and newer, less expensive means of generating creativity have emerged. Some of the examples are quite old, so they're not part of a current trend. Most of them were created for huge companies that could afford large agencies and their overhead.
Google's non-marketing is marvelous proof of how to do it without an agency. Granted, their entire business model is built upon a foundation of search marketing yet somehow they managed to pull off a huge business success by not using conventional thinking and marketing...like their competitors did. Google's advertising strategy has always been mostly PR and advertising on their own site. None of that, to my recollection, has been driven by a big idea. They simply deliver incredibly innovative value and it catches on. Today Google is generally ranked among the top brands of the world, depending on whose survey you want to quote.
Regarding the declining cost of creativity, consider the following:
1) Agency revenues are in a freefall. If clients believe big ideas from agencies are valuable, and becoming more scarce, wouldn't agency revenues be going up?
2) New and better marketing technologies are emerging rapidly. If there wasn't a demand for do-it-yourself branding tools like Spigit, why would investors back such a company?
3) The mobile marketing workforce has never been more talented or more plentiful. Over supply means a downward push on pricing.
Where can we find a soaring supply of free ideas? I encourage clients to look within their own companies. I've always found tremendous advertising ideas by talking with folks in sales, purchasing, R&D, operations, finance and other corporate functions. Until recently, it just wasn't generally accepted that good ideas originated anywhere but the agency...but search and social media have turned that cart completely over while paving the way for nifty tools like Spigit. By the way, that's what Spigit helps with...collecting and sorting all those great ideas generated inside the company.
Of course the uber source for free branding and advertising ideas is the internet itself. The creativity one gleans from search is only limited by the creativity of the searcher. And it costs nary a dime.
Anyways, hope this sheds some light on why I believe the cost of high quality advertising, branding and marketing is headed downward.
Mike Harris, San Diego