Nils Leonard warns agencies lack drive of management consultant challengers
Already besieged by data marketers, ad agencies need to look out for the rise of the next generation of competitors, the business consultancy’s such as McKinsey, Nils Leonard has warned.
In Australia last week to deliver the D&AD Presidents Lecture, Leonard told Mumbrella that just as the industry was coming to terms with the blurring of the lines between multiple disciplines all playing in the same space, the emergence of business consultancies on the creative horizon would shake things up again.
Armed with the tools of data and analytics and not burdened with the baggage of a history in the industry, Leonard said the management consultants represented a new breed of competition for agencies.
“If you think about people like McKinsey, they are in a different meeting to us,” said Leonard of their access to the C-suite.
I don’t think this makes sense “He said he had heard to many creatives lament being in the room with CEOs and not brand directors, saying as soon as you had the ear of the head of the company you could convince them to take the risks necessary to make the company cut through.”
For god’s sake, that’s what strategists and planners are supposed to do!
Don’t disagree, it’s just ironic that neither his agency nor the industry body he represents is progressive enough to welcome this new breed of thinkers. Us vs them – Great mentality! The sooner agencies give up pretending to be the centre of all, and actually behave like one of many practitioners businesses require, the better off they’ll be.
How many agency types get meaningful C-Suite access? Very few. (and I’m not counting the once a year canapé invites) Fewer still are suitable for that speaking with that end of the business.
@I wonder: you got the CEO/brand directors mixed up in your requote.
What a CEO thinks is ‘creative’ and what an agency creative thinks is ‘creative’ are probably miles apart. The agency creative will possibly have the right idea buried amongst their myriad other ideas, but there will be a host of issues to address – most pertinent being risk management and the fact that you’re playing with people’s livelihoods.
I think that the creative does need to read up on corporate culture before they find themselves in a position to influence a CEO who might not have the same ability to sort through the dross to find the gem as certain CDs are able to do. It comes down to – as it always has – the ability to persuade, but the agency creative will need a better platform than ‘hey can’t you just acknowledge how wonderful my idea is and use it?’
I think the creative also needs to understand where data fits in this mix – not as a post-rationalisation but as a trigger for genuine and efficacious insight.
@qt3:14 says that this is the domain of the strategists and planners – it certainly is for the best of these who can build on insight but not so for the majority who just regurgitate it.
McKinsey and BCG own this space because they speak the language. Time for us to learn this language.
Hi me,
Apologies to I Wonder on this – they were transposed originally and then altered – should have been flagged earlier.
Cheers,
Alex – editor, Mumbrella
He’ s totally correct. Agencies no longer have the personnel or the skills to solve serious business problems, they are great at solving communication problems. There is a significant gap between those two things.