One trick advertising agencies!

Let us review something written and published in Marketing Magazine, the author is Marc Ritson, Assistant Professor of Marketing at the London Business School.

"A pipe bursts in your house. When the local handyman arrives, he is carrying a large toolbox. Without even looking at the pipe, he opens the box to reveal only one tool: a hammer. He takes it out and brings it crashing down on the broken pipe - for an hour. With the pipe destroyed, he asks for £100 and leaves.

I heard it put a little differently the other day, a potential new Client walked into the presentation room of a large agency, the Client Director said, "The answer is a 30 second TV commercial, now what’s your question?"

This provides an accurate analogy for the state of the marketing communications industry. The fanfare that greeted the emergence of integrated marketing communications in the early 90s has died away, leaving the industry uncomfortably aware that it still represents a series of one-trick ponies.

Advertising agencies still espouse solutions that centre on advertising. PR agencies always suggest PR; direct agencies suggest direct marketing and so on.

What of the advertising agencies? In terms of numbers, the laid back attitude of many agencies seems at first glance to be justifiable. Despite the huge proliferation of new interactive services and products in the past few years, the economics of the advertising business have barely been affected.

The vast majority of advertising revenue is spent on traditional media and, the growth of direct mail notwithstanding; the advertising agencies still control the transactions that take place between the advertiser and the media owner.

Yet as traditional spot and display advertising becomes less dominant, and as expenditure on commercials gives way to targeted selling using interactive technology. Giving the consumer the opportunity to respond directly to the advertiser, the role of agencies as an interface between the advertiser and the customer will decline and a new productive age will have dawned.