Chris Savage: Agency competition has become ‘a knife fight in a telephone box’
L:R Tom Burton, Kat Thomas, Alex Hayes, Stuart Gregor, Chris Savage, speaking last week at Commscon.
Chris Savage chief operating officer of Australia’s largest communications group, STW has told a conference of PR professionals that increasing tense competition is one of the biggest issues facing the advertising industry.
Speaking last week at the final Question Time of CommsCon conference Savage said: “From our perspective at STW it’s absolutely a knife fight in a telephone box.
“Most of our businesses, and I would suggest most of the businesses in our industry, are only disrupting themselves to the extent that their most disruptive client is disrupting them.”
What the hell is a “telephone box”?
Last year it was ‘content marketing’ this and ‘social selling’ that. This year it is ‘big data’ that and ‘disruption’ this.
Clients will pick or retain the agency that is going to do the best job. As ever the agencies that can change and adapt, produce the goods and all the while service the client incredibly well, will win / retain business.
Nothing has changed. Lots of people use buzzwords, especially on Linkedin, (that is really annoying me at the moment):
– CEO’s of a company with one employee (themselves) sharing info-graphics about common sense.
Okay, back to the article: The best agencies, will retain their clients.
Pity those PR professionals (sounds better than amateurs) who endured this twaddle. Speakers may as well have spoken Swahili for all the sense they made.
@leslie
I think it must be the box a mobile phone comes in. The people involved must be very tiny if they can have a knife fight in there.
Ideate, Kat? Very cromulant of you to embiggen my vernaculese.
Chris Savage is right about the knife fight. And clients are taking advantage of this by pitting agencies against each other to reduce fees or trawl for ideas.
Or they are moving to a model such as CumminsplusAdamminusJason which avoids the deleterious effects of, say, a media agency from one multinational group sandbagging a creative agency from another multinational group whilst both are on the same client account. Funny thing is, I think this model has been used before.
When everyone disruptzigs, assuagezag.
As someone on the outside looking for gaps to get into media/advertising, I’m attracted to the knife fight. I think it will and is possibly poking holes in the box for outsiders to gain their entry. In saying that, I realize that new trends are simply good old fashioned courtesy, thoughtfulness and generosity. The buzzwords are delicious though. Keep em coming.
@Eda. I don’t quite understand your comment. Would you create an infographic, so that I can digest this a little better? Perhaps you could share it on Linkedin too?
@disruptive telephone box buzzword in simple terms, there’s nothing wrong with competition. Feel free to connect on linkedin, I’m an open book.
”digital allows people to communicate directly with people”
Isn’t that what the phonebox does?