The 4A’s recently published an interesting article to their site that made the following point: The agency business model has been under assault for the past decade, and today’s economic crisis only underscores the critical changes agencies must make in the way they’re structured, the way they provide service, and the way they make money. It’s time for marketing communications firms to come face to face with the issues and realities facing our business today:
- There’s less demand for what agencies traditionally have to sell.
- Clients need more help in online marketing, particularly social media, but agencies aren’t set up to provide it.
- Agencies are spending their energies “above-the-line” while clients are spending their budgets “below-the-line”.
- Agencies are stuck in a structure that churns out advertising ideas instead of business-building ideas.
- Clients are hammering agencies on price and speed for work they perceive as a commodity.
- There’s a strong movement toward accountability that agencies aren’t prepared to address.
This got me to thinking about just how well A&W is prepared to meet all of the demands that the 4A’s outlined here:
- We are prepared to utilize online marketing and social media to its fullest extent, as proven by our well-established presence on various social media hubs like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.
- We approach our clients as true business partners, and so our ideas are always first and foremost about helping to grow the business itself, followed by making sure that we’re showcasing our “partners” in the best creative light possible.
- We take pride in our accountability program, whether it’s our extensive use of Google Analytics or MapInfo, to measure – and improve upon – the results of our efforts.
All of this plus the fact that we literally have an agency full of professionals who are constantly looking to get on top of the next emerging communication service, I can’t help but feel proud of where this agency is and where it’s going.
Austin Williams is an award-winning, full-service Long Island advertising agency that dares to be outcomes driven. Our in-house services include research, brand identity, campaign development, media planning and buying, website development, digital marketing, content creation and public relations. We are a financial advertising agency, healthcare marketing agency, higher education marketing agency, and professional services marketing agency.