How consultancies buying creative agencies will change the life of CMOs
As consultancies start to acquire adland, Uberbrand’s Dan Ratner considers what it means for the CMOs of the future.
Consultancies are buying ad agencies (or in the case of Deloitte, nabbing their staffers) in a trend that seems to be gaining momentum. Some argue it could be due to an increasing hunger for creativity in consultancies that are tasked with helping business leaders take their organisations forward. However, when all the focus is on the creative, what happens to the strategy?
Accenture’s acquisition of The Monkeys was the mark of things to come
To a large extent, much of this change is being driven by the enterprise’s chief marketing officer (CMO). These executives are being squeezed at both ends: while they hold a more strategic position in the organisation than they have in the past, they’re also still tasked with tactical campaigns.
The CMO now looks after organisational strategy, internal alignment, advertising, social media, lead generation, sales and more. There is enormous pressure on CMOs to directly affect the bottom line and the tenure can be short for a CMO who’s seen to be too slow in delivering results.
I’m don’t think CMO’s look after organisational strategy or internal alignment, there are other positions in a business who are more responsible for that (CSO, COO, CEO, HR etc). The big advantage the consultancies have is they sit outside of a marketing function and have a more holistic view of the business and where it’s heading. Something very few “branding” agencies in Australia do very well (and potentially why many of the consultancies are taken more seriously by the C suite).
As we move further towards an experienced based economy, where how brands are experienced matters more than what their advertising or marketing looks like, the game becomes more open. Consultancies are trying to evolve into a new way of operating to match this, but a lot of agencies (brand and advertising) appear to be championing the same stuff they have for a while. Which in the future wont cut it. The race is on…
@Just saying’ – I agree that organisational strategy and internal alignment are rarely, if ever, the true (i.e. not titular) responsibility of CMOs, and that client advertisers value the more holistic third-party view of management consultancies – but from whence has your ‘new’ concept of ‘experienced-based economy’ sprung?
Whenever were brands just the sum total of their advertising and marketing?
As loathe as some agencies and CMOs are to admit it, advertising and marketing as creators of brand perception have always sat on the very bottom of the totem pole from a consumer’s perspective.
Personal experience eating, drinking, driving etc a service or product has always driven the fundamental view of, and response to, a brand, followed by WOM, then arguably, perceptions generated by the earned media, both good and bad.
Ironically, your notion that brand perceptions are, or were once, driven by advertising and marketing reflects a certain insularity or myopia that excludes any non ad-land influences – precisely the blinkered perspective being exploited by the business consultancies, as you rightly suggest!
If the only thing they need to do is point out the bleedingly obvious to CMOs, then i suggest that they’re not encroaching on agency territory but simply occupying the free land which opened up for conquest.
@sventana – Sorry you misunderstood. I never implied that the way brands build equity through experience was ‘new’. Agreed it’s been happening for a very long time. It’s more that advertising in the past has played a much larger role in doing this, but is becoming increasingly less important today. I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say ‘have you seen that ad with the …”.
The consultancies are also starting to understand more about how important it is to create an experience, as opposed to things like improving operational efficiencies to grow margin.
It is very much an evolving landscape at the moment and those that shift their thinking first are likely to benefit the most.
@just sayin wrote ‘I can’t remember the last time I heard someone say ‘have you seen that ad with the …’
This is a key statement. No matter how much you spend on production and then mass broadcast; if the product is a lemon people, today, in a social proofed world, will not buy it. Apple will spend a lot, however the product is backed up. more so is the belief in their brand, which has taken decades to curate. Advertising plays a part, however inclusion, experience, fashion and being locked in and worried about moving over to Android, is a big factor people do not change.
CMO remit varies across company and sector, its hard to generalise. But safe to say Marketing’s scope to influence growth is expanding. Of the executional agencies I agree Branding shops are ‘more neutral’, but agencies are all specialists, they’re on the tools, its how their money is made.
The new opening is for those who ‘get the full scope of a business’ and what CMO’s face, but to say the big 4 consultants will grab it all is a tad flat earth. Not every client has a ton of cash or needs to boil their ocean. Methinks there’s room for all manner of consultancies to rock up and have a go.