Agency 2.5: Transforming for the Future

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 realities facing our business:

• 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 workshop looks at the traditional agency functions and discusses what to relinquish, what to rework, and what to reinvent. We’ll explore the new emerging functions that are reframing the agency skill set, including social media, analytics, user experience, and reputation management.

We’ll examine specific tools, methods, and approaches you can employ to become more relevant and valuable to clients, including:

• Online reputation management and social media as an agency function
• Fully integrating interactive into the fabric of the agency
• How to bring more accountability through analytics
• Becoming as expert in one-to-one communications as mass communications
• The imperative to moving away from exposure to engagement
• Skills and functions needed to move from “push” to “pull”
• The importance of separating ideation from execution
• Developing branded content instead of advertising
• Thinking multi-channel production instead of ad production
• Charging for thinking, not just doing.

Agencies preach disruption to their clients. Now it’s time for agency professionals to disrupt the way they do business themselves. This workshop shows how.

This seminar is designed for mid- to senior-level agency professionals in account management, account planning, creative, media, digital, public relations, and other client-facing agency disciplines.

The instructor is Tim Williams, founder of Ignition, a leading consultancy devoted to helping marketing communications firms create and capture more value.

In his role as author, teacher, and consultant, Tim works with marketing organizations throughout the U.S. and abroad. He is a speaker and workshop leader for organizations such as the American Association of Advertising Agencies, American Advertising Federation, Association of National Advertisers, American Marketing Association, CBS Television, National Public Radio, The One Club, numerous agency networks, and individual agencies ranging from large multinationals to small independents.

Tim is the former president of R&R Partners (creators of the “What happens here stays here” campaign for Las Vegas), and has was founder of his own firm, now known as Richter 7. During his experience at agencies like Ogilvy & Mather in New York and elsewhere, Tim was responsible for such brands as COMPAQ, CBS Television, Jeep, IBM, and American Express.

As a recognized thought leader in the advertising and marketing business, Tim contributes to leading trade and business magazines including Advertising Age, Adweek, Communication Arts, Admap, Marketing News, and The Advertiser.

He is author of the book “Take a Stand for Your Brand: Building a Great Agency Brand from the Inside Out”, recognized as the standard for agency brand development.