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Friday, January 05, 2007

Ad Agency Deathwatch: The Future of Advertising and Agencies: A 10 Year Perspective

IPA recently published ‘The Future of Advertising and Agencies: A 10 Year Perspective’, which has looked at the future shape of the advertising industry. The IPA has worked with the Future Foundation, a global strategic consultancy and think tank, on this report.

The report indicates that by 2016 traditional advertising will shrink at the expense of consumer-influenced content and brand–influenced editorial so agencies will need to both innovate and evolve into new territory. New freedoms in the delivery of content, data and channels will provide new business opportunities whilst still maintaining the overriding focus on brand creation and development. Agencies will need to take on multiple roles such as:

-agency as media brand owner
-agency as joint venture partner
-agency as content collaborator
-agency as programme producer
-agency as network creator
-agency as data provider
-agency as data aggregator

If agencies don’t take these opportunities there will be tremendous implications in terms of their relationships with clients, their remuneration packages and their very existence.

60 page publication is available from the IPA for £300 for non-members and £150 for members. To order a copy click here

4 comments:

salina said...

Two Ad Agency Deathwatches in one day? I think you're just looking for a way to get those little graphics up on our blog. I'm on to you, AKI SYSTEMS 2600.

Anonymous said...

It looks like the running theme among all the items is creating/making things that are useful/entertaining?

So we can't get away with making ads anymore, instead we should be making films (BMW Films, Fallon), video games (BK stuff, CP+B) music (W+K Studio Lab)?

Does that mean we can't get away with just being the "idea generators" anymore? It looks like the agency of the future will require us to make something tangible.

AKI SYSTEMS 2600 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
AKI SYSTEMS 2600 said...

I am not neccesarily prescribing that we always make "entertainments" per se. But if entertainment fits the brand and the audience and the business objectives, then do entertain. 

But I do think we need to provide tangible relevance.

The idea that giving the consumer 30 seconds of funny is starting to wear. If we want their time, we will need to provide something relevant worth their time. And agencies have the opportunity to understand what consumers may want, and produce it. This will cause all of us to broaden the dimensions of our productions...maybe design a whole store in Time Square (Hershey Store), or educational programming online, TV series, Movies, perhaps we may begin to manage sports teams (Red Bull) on behalf of our clients.

In the end, we may be compelled to know more than how to produce great spots for our clients. Consumers seem to have less and less room for more and more spots from us.