The limitations of the old agency model

Old models don’t cut it any more.

The One Centre believes the old agency model has not accounted for the shift from broadcast to brand experience; that it remains limited in its ability to think, create and evaluate for the experience economy.

Limited thinking

The old agency model focuses thinking on brands on communications rather than actions and interactions. It develops differentiated brand positioning for differentiated communications. Business in the experience economy needs thinking on developing differentiated business positioning and how that positioning translates to differentiated brand behaviour – across all 8 ‘Ps’ of marketing. Business in the experience economy requires a Brand Idea that inspires and guides not just what the brand says, but what it DOES. In the experience economy it’s all about brand demonstration not just communication.

Limited creativity

The old agency model limits the ability to bring Brand Ideas to life experientially due to inherent structural impediments and inertias, commercial and creative conservatism on what constitutes media and medium, and a recessive creative class structure and value system. In the experience economy an agency cannot afford to divorce ‘design’ from ‘communications’. Expansive design is the frontline of Brand Idea expression and demonstration. There can be no domination of a single creative discipline. The apartheid of creative disciplines must be dismantled. The segregation of broadcast advertising as the idea centre above direct, interactive, promotions, events, sponsorship and CRM limits the possibility of ideas that leverage different media and mediums, that involve people in an interconnected journey of experiences. The imposition and mechanical integration of the same message across different media is not ‘integration’ but proliferation. The old model’s lack of experiential creativity is a consequence of its conservatism over what advertising is, and what constitutes media and medium. These things all relate to a deep commercial and cultural bias to broadcast communications (most old models maintain a hegemony of creative directors who built careers on broadcast advertising and, as such, still hold such creativity in highest regard, and first response). An agency must see the irony and folly of an old-world model and its community institutions, continuing to award and reward on old-world creative ideals while the real world needs more. In the experience economy agencies must embrace multi-disciplinary design, practice not just media neutrality but media-versality, seek multi-sensory solutions, employ and celebrate eclectic creative talent and foster a culture of cross-discipline creative interconnection, equality and freedom.

Limited evaluation

The old agency model limits the ability to evaluate for the new experience economy because of a phobia of "creative research". It often views research as the Anti-Christ of creativity. As a result becoming culturally averse and inexpert at research per se. It often fails to invest in and develop sovereign, in-house R&D systems; the people, tools and processes that identify market opportunities, help inform and optimise ideas and evaluate the human and commercial impacts of those ideas in implementation. It can fail to recognise the value of research in navigating the fine line between major risk & reward. And value in building a case for why something has worked, not just why it hasn’t.

In the mature, crowded markets of the experience economy, competitive imitation is instant. Gains from minor product or service tweaks are highly temporary. Real incremental value is gained from genuine, idea-led innovation.

"A company whose strength lies in innovation does not wait for consumers to tell it what they want because the public does not know what is possible. But we do..."
- Akio Morita Founder of Sony Corp and Inventor of the Walkman.

While most consumers have a limited frame of reference extending only as far as their existing experience - particularly in markets with a history of little real innovation -research plays an essential role in reading the latent belief and behavioural structures within a market. It provides a map from which emerging market GAPs or innovation opportunities can be identified. It also provides the capacity to inform and assess ideas, not just in absolute terms but also in a human context; how they are engaged emotively and experientially, and how they can be optimised to increase consumer and commercial value.

In failing to make evaluation core to its process, an old-model agency can fail itself. An aversion and inability to appraise usually means the power of evaluation is out-sourced, often to outmoded research practices, often on the grounds of objectivity. In doing so the agency may be out-sourcing responsibility and sensitivity not only to its ideas and intentions, but its destiny.

Agencies cannot afford to loose control of the Brand Idea and brand action evaluation process, nor the capital it produces, culturally or commercially. The capital must be continually referenced internally. It must be omnipresent throughout development. And then the impacts of idea implementation must be measured to enable active management. Rather than research being the anti-Christ of creativity, agencies in the experience economy must embrace research and view it as an essential and proactive part of the idea-led innovation process. Labeling it a “rear view mirror” fails to grasp its forward-motion capacity in providing satellite navigation and a dashboard of dials, sensors and redline indicators.