Start from the beginning
Robert C. Baier is shifting his focus to the strategic area
Robert C. Baier shifts activities to the strategic areaAfter the management buyout last January, the media agency Robert C. Baier is realigning itself. Media auditing and strategy consulting will take center stage in the future. Baier intends to source personnel and cost-intensive services from the media back office from other service centers.Baier has to start practically from scratch, without a client base and with a greatly reduced team (WW 6/01). In the best times - the mid-eighties - the agency employed eight people. Now he works with two employees.
"Media audits, media concepts, strategy models in coordination with creation, media buying, rate analyses and, from late summer, TV planning," is how Baier describes the focus of his future range of services. But first he needs to build up a new customer base. At the moment, Baier is putting out feelers in the financial communications sector. He has two or three inquiries on the table that could lead to customer relationships. He expects to have half a dozen customers by late summer.
Baier does not consider it a disadvantage that a small agency like his cannot hold a candle to the large agencies when it comes to evaluation and calculation programs and access to databases. Because the detailed planning process is enormously labor- and personnel-intensive, he wants to "keep this area lean and outsource it whenever possible. If the requirements profile demands it, we will buy this option from other agencies," is Baier's recipe. This is why he believes that the small team is able to offer a full media service, but that this is no longer the main focus.
Baier is convinced that the concentration of media services at large agencies will continue. His forecast: "An oligopoly of five to six media agencies will emerge - at the expense of medium-sized and small agencies, which will have to restructure themselves." Baier is currently in the middle of this process. With a sideways glance at a few other media chiefs who have recently gone into business for themselves, he says half-jokingly: "Some gurus will remain." Daniel Schifferle
"Media audits, media concepts, strategy models in coordination with creation, media buying, rate analyses and, from late summer, TV planning," is how Baier describes the focus of his future range of services. But first he needs to build up a new customer base. At the moment, Baier is putting out feelers in the financial communications sector. He has two or three inquiries on the table that could lead to customer relationships. He expects to have half a dozen customers by late summer.
Baier does not consider it a disadvantage that a small agency like his cannot hold a candle to the large agencies when it comes to evaluation and calculation programs and access to databases. Because the detailed planning process is enormously labor- and personnel-intensive, he wants to "keep this area lean and outsource it whenever possible. If the requirements profile demands it, we will buy this option from other agencies," is Baier's recipe. This is why he believes that the small team is able to offer a full media service, but that this is no longer the main focus.
Baier is convinced that the concentration of media services at large agencies will continue. His forecast: "An oligopoly of five to six media agencies will emerge - at the expense of medium-sized and small agencies, which will have to restructure themselves." Baier is currently in the middle of this process. With a sideways glance at a few other media chiefs who have recently gone into business for themselves, he says half-jokingly: "Some gurus will remain." Daniel Schifferle
