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Propulsion: Exploring the "next practices" of successful marketing communication firms

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Why your agency positioning strategy should not be based on facts

January 31, 2012 | Author: Tim Williams

When it comes to your agency’s business strategy (positioning), the best place to start is to make sure you’ve struck the right balance between authenticity
and aspiration.

An agency positioning that’s too authentic is too backward-looking, too focused on where the business was instead of...

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Be a market maker, not a follower

January 16, 2012 | Author: Tim Williams

As a professional services firm, the ultimate business strategy is to not just be a category leader, but to create a new category; to be a category of one.  The most powerful positionings create a new market, in which you are the leading – and only – provider.

Of course this isn’t easy. ...

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A New Year’s resolution for agencies:  Start billing for what you really sell

January 4, 2012 | Author: Tim Williams

In groups of agency professionals around the world I have often asked the question, “What do clients really buy from your agency?” Their answers usually include things like “Solutions to marketing problems,” “Insights and innovation,” “Expertise,” and “Successful marketplace outcomes.”  Not a...

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Time to kill the digital department

December 13, 2011 | Author: Tim Williams

Is there really an agency leader alive who doesn’t know that it’s time to disband the idea of a “digital department?” 

I.T. Cubicle

Back in the days of Mad Men, agencies had a “television department,” because TV was a new technology that the print/outdoor/radio-centric agency executive of the 1950’s...

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Why most “full service” agencies are actually now specialist agencies

December 5, 2011 | Author: Tim Williams

95% of agency websites prominently feature the words “full service” somewhere in the first few sentences. (No wonder clients have a difficult time differentiating between agencies if everyone claims the exact same business model.) But in reality, very few agencies really do serve clients in a “full-service” way. Here’s why.

According to research from the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), Fortune 500 companies have an average of 17 agency relationships.  Not a single one of them have an actual “Agency of Record.”  They may have what they consider to be a “lead creative agency,” but that’s hardly the same...

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