I am my own planner
Advertisers prefer to develop marketing communication strategies alone
Advertising clients prefer to develop marketing communication strategies on their ownBy Luca Aloisi Until the end of the 1990s, the industry sang the praises of the young discipline of the strategic planner. Today, clients seem to be convinced that they can do without the advertising agency's top planner. A qualitative study entitled "Strategic planning from the perspective of advertising clients" reads like this.
Acceptance and establishment of strategic planning among Swiss advertising clients are on a shaky footing. What our gut feeling has been telling us for some time now is backed up by a qualitative study. Its author Florian Bausch, until recently Head of Marketing Communications at a telecoms company and soon to return to the agency side, based his findings on 30 individual interviews conducted in September. Even if the results of the survey of marketing decision-makers from nine of the strongest communication sectors do not claim to be exhaustive, they do provide an up-to-date picture of the difficult relationship between customers and planning.
One conclusion from the study: the demands of the customer side are becoming more complex, as planning will increasingly become a holistic marketing unit that encompasses not only the brand and the consumer, but also the functioning of the industry and the entire marketing mix. This view gains weight when one considers that the marketing mix ratio is shifting more and more in favor of below-the-line activities.
For two thirds of respondents, strategic planning involves strategy development (46%) or consulting (18%), while for 16% the discipline is closely linked to analysis. Industry expertise was only mentioned by 7%, while 13% of clients signaled their reluctance towards this department with the statement "little/not useful" in the first question on strategic planning.
The competencies awarded provide insight into this polarization: the discipline receives good ratings for brand and communication experience and trend research. From the client's perspective, however, industry knowledge, planning skills and marketing experience score below average. This also explains why planning hardly plays a role in strategic decisions.
The gaps between demands and service quality are currently being filled by product and brand management in terms of expertise, consulting, methods and analyses. This is not surprising, as almost all information tools - from consumer, channel and media data to volume analyses - are available on the customer side. In addition, many companies now have management-by-objectives or balance scorecard systems that require continuous brand management.
Three agency models will be able to survive on the market
Bausch sees human quality as another opportunity for agencies. But as long as they essentially pay lower salaries than the client side, the situation cannot be improved - for similar job profiles, the wage difference is at least 13%. "This is the agencies' own fault," says Bausch, without blaming them: On the one hand, they are under high competitive and cost pressure from the competition, and on the other hand, they are under high pressure to succeed vis-à-vis the client.
In order to keep the overall risk as low as possible, the agency is cutting costs, with consequences for human quality. According to Bausch, counter-cyclical action is required to remedy the situation, i.e. the purchase of industry experts. Only in this way can the agency maintain the necessary competence and offer the client the desired added value.
Bausch concludes that three agency business models will crystallize in the future: The strategic-creative agency, which advises clients on the entire marketing mix and thus actually offers integrated communication. He also sees the pure creative agency, which specializes in the development of creative solutions, and the complementary brand/planning agency, a consulting unit ideally made up of former industry marketers.
Bausch, who "at heart and from my background" is an agency planner with agency and industry experience, sees his study as far from complete; he is in the process of examining the perception of planning from the agency side too. He then wants to publish a book on holistic planning and offer workshops. Because: "If it says planning on it, there must be planning in it," says Bausch, summing up his experience.
Acceptance and establishment of strategic planning among Swiss advertising clients are on a shaky footing. What our gut feeling has been telling us for some time now is backed up by a qualitative study. Its author Florian Bausch, until recently Head of Marketing Communications at a telecoms company and soon to return to the agency side, based his findings on 30 individual interviews conducted in September. Even if the results of the survey of marketing decision-makers from nine of the strongest communication sectors do not claim to be exhaustive, they do provide an up-to-date picture of the difficult relationship between customers and planning.
One conclusion from the study: the demands of the customer side are becoming more complex, as planning will increasingly become a holistic marketing unit that encompasses not only the brand and the consumer, but also the functioning of the industry and the entire marketing mix. This view gains weight when one considers that the marketing mix ratio is shifting more and more in favor of below-the-line activities.
For two thirds of respondents, strategic planning involves strategy development (46%) or consulting (18%), while for 16% the discipline is closely linked to analysis. Industry expertise was only mentioned by 7%, while 13% of clients signaled their reluctance towards this department with the statement "little/not useful" in the first question on strategic planning.
The competencies awarded provide insight into this polarization: the discipline receives good ratings for brand and communication experience and trend research. From the client's perspective, however, industry knowledge, planning skills and marketing experience score below average. This also explains why planning hardly plays a role in strategic decisions.
The gaps between demands and service quality are currently being filled by product and brand management in terms of expertise, consulting, methods and analyses. This is not surprising, as almost all information tools - from consumer, channel and media data to volume analyses - are available on the customer side. In addition, many companies now have management-by-objectives or balance scorecard systems that require continuous brand management.
Three agency models will be able to survive on the market
Bausch sees human quality as another opportunity for agencies. But as long as they essentially pay lower salaries than the client side, the situation cannot be improved - for similar job profiles, the wage difference is at least 13%. "This is the agencies' own fault," says Bausch, without blaming them: On the one hand, they are under high competitive and cost pressure from the competition, and on the other hand, they are under high pressure to succeed vis-à-vis the client.
In order to keep the overall risk as low as possible, the agency is cutting costs, with consequences for human quality. According to Bausch, counter-cyclical action is required to remedy the situation, i.e. the purchase of industry experts. Only in this way can the agency maintain the necessary competence and offer the client the desired added value.
Bausch concludes that three agency business models will crystallize in the future: The strategic-creative agency, which advises clients on the entire marketing mix and thus actually offers integrated communication. He also sees the pure creative agency, which specializes in the development of creative solutions, and the complementary brand/planning agency, a consulting unit ideally made up of former industry marketers.
Bausch, who "at heart and from my background" is an agency planner with agency and industry experience, sees his study as far from complete; he is in the process of examining the perception of planning from the agency side too. He then wants to publish a book on holistic planning and offer workshops. Because: "If it says planning on it, there must be planning in it," says Bausch, summing up his experience.
