ashinynewagency

Can an agency exist without flowers?

So important things first.

Can an agency in 2012 survive without having a big reception area with nice flowers?

Be curious...

Leo wrote up some notes on the session we did at the IMM09 event. They are found here.

One of the themes that came out of the group is that the agency should be the agency of consumer insight, educating the client and helping them keep abreast of trends. And historically, a media agency strength has been the ability to dissect consumer media habits.

Yet two things. First,

"It's all about the moolah"

Got this message from one media agency senior planner, when asked to share thoughts on a media agency:

A commission based agency is for:
The planning and negotiation of the efficient renting of space in pre determined media spaces for determined lengths of time. Success is often based upon the achieved lowest cost per 'thingy' that you're buying, making it a further commoditised business than it was yesterday....(yawn)

Agree here. So how many media agencies around the world are still working on commissions? And is this as much to do with client indifference to organising more forward thinking payment mechanisms as a media agency wishing to be stuck to the cosy commission?

The contributor goes on to say:

Media Agency: Don't you just buy TV space?

When I started at McCann Erickson, as a TV buyer, the media department was seen as the ugly side of the full service agency.

Clients would be enamoured by the Creative Director's genius (and pool table), and be pampered by the Bag Carrying account service teams.

A visit to the media department floor normally involved a swift passing through the press planning section (for some reason close to the lift), whilst the TV buying team (as far from the lift as possible) never seemed to warrent any visits at all.

Welcome to ashinynewagency...

We are Leo Ryan of Ryan MacMillan, and Paul Bay of citizenbay and citizensound.

There we were at the IMM09 on a panel called Talking Digital with Jon Bains of Lateral, in front of media agencies, media owners and brand folk.

We talked digital, but thought it more useful to get the audience to create the agency of 2012.

The comments from the audience were enlightening not only on what they believe the media agency could be, but also what it is right now.

In the audience, less than a handful have used twitter. Similarly, very few have used Last.fm. At IMM08, very few had tried to upload something onto youtube. Given the audience is made up of people who are generating communications ideas for brands, it was a little surprising that so few are getting their heads round such things.

Yet there were some intriguing thoughts and views coming from the group. We will be putting up some of the comments along with a number of thoughts of our own.

But this blog is not ours, it is just a place for everyone to contribute, as so many people have a view on what a media agency needs to be.

You might be stuck in an agency that just doesn't want to evolve, and you need to let off steam a bit. You might be working for the a shiny new agency already, so we would love to know how you did it.

So come on in and join in.

We called this blog ashinynewagency, which seems about right for this little experiment.

Leo and Paul