Incapable or misunderstood?

Digitial agencies are incapable of planning and executing social media activity for their clients.....


If you agree with this statement then you are of the same opinion as a speaker i saw today at a workshop on Advertising & Marketing through Social Media.

It's an interesting, if somewhat controversial, viewpoint which has drawn me into my own debate - do i agree or disagree?

Working for a digital agency i obviously come from a heavily biased origin.
Clients contact me on a daily basis about new online opportunities they have seen, new buzz words, the next big thing which they have to be a part of, and this is on top of my own thinking and ideas.

My role as the agency contact is to filter all of these options and to decide what the best platforms are for my clients to work with.
As part of the planning process i need to rationalise everything i do; advising, recommending and dissuading them to push them in the right direction to meet their marketing objectives.

There is a large amount of trust they place in my ability to do this intelligently and effectively....

Recent social media executions driven by agencies have fallen short of the 'intelligent & effective' mark

• NAB's blog spamming - Cox & Inall
• Fantastic Noodles attempt at its own social network - Clemenger BBDO

Both of these campaigns demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the social media landscape and both have gained notoriety about how not to execute a social media strategy.

But does that mean that all agencies should be tarred with the same brush?

The speaker i saw today justified his opinion with supporting statements about how agencies work:

• Agencies think in a 'campaign by campaign' mentality but social media is a long term strategy
• Agencies are adept at starting a conversation (i.e. broadcast media) but do not think to engage further to maintain an ongoing dialogue
• Agencies will stop social media once budgets are spent - therefore there is no continuity and conversations are ad hoc which isn't in line with building consumer advocacy

Whilst these comments are factually correct i want to give a bit of background insight as to why we operate this way....

Agencies think on a campaign by campaign basis:

Our clients give us budgets to promote certain products/services. These products & services are promoted within campaign periods which are outlined by the client according to their demand generation objectives.

These products may be tied to seasonal pushes (retail or travel), market influences (financial services) or general demand (technology & entertainment).

Agencies are adept at starting conversations but do not engage further to maintain dialogue / no continuity once budgets run out:

This follows on from the campaign periods. We are allocated 'campaign' budgets, once these are spent we are unable to continue or maintain dialogue past the initial start of the conversation.

So whilst i can agree from a factual point of view that these statements about agency working practices are correct i have to disagree that the onus should be solely with the agency to make the step change from 'campaign by campaign' to 'long term strategy'

Agencies can try to educate clients to move away from ad-hoc advertising, they can better advise them in regards to social media activity (unlike Cox & Inall) and they can dissuade them from ineffective executions.....but my view is that agencies are only one part of the equation.

Clients are not exempt from the firing line within this debate.

They ultimately drive the processes that agencies work by, they push the ad-hoc 'campaign' thinking and they control the budgets.

To quote Avenue A/Razorfish from the Digital Outlook Report 2008:

'client organisations - including the functions of marketing, sales, brand advertising, promotion, direct marketing, IT and general management - have all settled into a comfortable structure. These functions were built to support a stable world of marketing that remained virtually unchanged for 50 years...but consumers no longer move neatly from one touchpoint to another.....the internet has shattered the entire concept of the linear purchase funnel'

'How can companies organised along such traditional lines succeed in this environment? They can't. Even if they find an agency who has made the transition, to whom does the agency pitch their ideas? The IT department? The direct marketing specialists? The marketing director?'

'what has to change so that clients can quickly respond to, and act on, game changing digital ideas?'

So you see - until the 'client of the future' emerges these social media barriers will remain in place regardless of agency input.

And there you have it, i have jumped off the fence firmly in favour of the agencies this time around - now i can only hope we don't have any repeats of NAB & Fantastic Noodles....