Newsflash! Marketers Want Knowledgeable Agencies!
Sapient, who, it seems, hasn't been in the news since the digital boom of 1999, is out with a sponsored study of chief marketing officers which resulted in the creation of a "top ten list for agencies of the future." At the risk of boring you with the details of a study that offers no new insight, here's the list:
1. Greater knowledge of the digital space. (Seriously? That's a stunner!)
2. More use of "pull interactions." (Oh yes they did. They created a new buzzword for social media)
3. Leverage virtual communities. (Apparently, none of the surveyed CMO lived through the Second Life debacle)
4. Agency executives using the technology they are recommending. (It would certainly be nice but, in most cases, it's never gonna happen. By definition, most senior management is disconnected from reality.)
5. Chief Digital Officers make agencies more appealing. (CDO? Seriously? Did they just create yet another CxO title?)
6. Web 2.0 and social media savvy. (See number five.)
7. Agencies that understand consumer behavior. (Um, yea. Like this is a new one. Not that all agencies deliver on this but this is supposed to be some new quality for agencies of the future?)
8. Demonstrate strategic thinking. ( A survey was needed to determine this finding?)
9. Branding and creative capabilities. (See number eight.)
10. Ability to measure success. (Well, duh! Of course, it's well known most agencies do not deliver will on this one.)
So there it is. In case you needed a refresher course on what agencies need to be doing...according to Sapient, of course.
Comments
Yes another useless piece of knowledge - this from an information technology company? No wonder.
Not surprisingly, the list could easily be applied to clients and CMOs too. But for the client and CMOs list, we would have to add: Gain knowledge—even remedial knowledge—on marketing in the 21st century.
I've coined the CDO title before. Inspired by George Parker's musing, it means: Chief Dumb Officer.
goes to show that the tech guys still don't understand a few fundamentals:
1. A technology platform is not an idea, it's a medium (or, as the tech-heads would understand, a 'vessel')
2. A medium only becomes powerful/useable when it is communicating a powerful idea
In short, the folks on the idea side of the business don't have enough money to develop new technology platforms and use them to disseminate ideas AND the tech-heads who are sitting on a pile of 'infrastructure' have no idea how to develop an idea
Thus, the CMO's never-ending search for the completely integrated communications agency that doesn't exist