Brand Republic and agency management software provider, Deltek, recently hosted a webinar to discuss whether traditional advertising agencies were still fit for purpose.
The panel, made up of senior advertising experts including Ogilvy & Mather London’s CEO, Charlie Rudd and MBA’s CEO, Stephen Maher, discussed ‘the major structural changes and creative upheavals taking place within the agency world.’
Their findings identified the ‘new normal’ for advertising agencies, as well as how to adapt to the changes to safeguard their future. Topics included how to attract and retain talent, how to get the resourcing mix right and the importance of new technology.
Tempting and retaining new talent
The panel agreed that finding and retaining talent should be at the top of any agency’s priority list. After all, the backbone of any agency is its creative talent. However, attracting talent has become more competitive and more of a challenge due to the broader choice of creative industries.
Not only do agencies need to adapt to attract the right talent, but they also need to ensure the best possible working environment to guarantee happy, motivated staff. The company culture also needs to acknowledge and reflect the staff’s need to feel supported, nurtured, rewarded and valued – especially in such a high pressured environment – to ensure maximum productivity.
Getting the resourcing mix right
Acknowledging that, ‘Today’s agencies have many more roles, disciplines and departments,’ the findings revealed that there is also a need to ‘bring a much more diverse range talent into the industry to better reflect the world we live in.’
Suggestions from the panel of how to implement this included, offering apprenticeships and building relationships with universities.
Embracing new technology
Also revealed, the need for agencies to embrace new technology in order to realise a more fluid way of working to enable a happier and more productive workforce.
According to Ray Kieser, global practice director of marcoms, Deltek, ‘The role of tech is to help join the dots so that we have better information to make better decisions. It is the future of the business; it allows you to automate processes that are redundant.’
So what can we take away from this? The five key learnings that were identified are:
- ‘To stay relevant and grow, agencies need to look inwards, around the operations and structures of their business, and make strategic changes.
- Numbers one, two and three on the list of priorities should be talent—without it we can’t build successful agencies.
- Creating the right culture is crucial to keeping staff on side. Businesses need to offer continuous professional development and nurturing so that staff feel supported.
- To stay ahead, we need to recruit new types of talent that better reflect the world we live in.
- Technology has a huge role to play in making people’s jobs easier and more enjoyable; relieving the admin burden so more time can be spent on the work.’
In conclusion, the report found that, ‘Despite the increasing demands and added pressures, our experts reinforced the ad industry is still an attractive industry to work in.’ And we couldn’t agree more at Redwood.
We believe our great working environment and company culture reinforces our values, enabling us to proactively help our clients with their advertising needs, whilst delivering an honest, trustworthy, transparent and truly personal service.
