Agencies: what changes are clients looking for?

Mike Sommers

A client's view of how agencies should change. The author sets advertising agencies in the scale of external consultants whom clients call on for help, and finds them low down the list.

Agencies: What changes are clients looking for?

Mike Sommers

Clients pay outside people for things they can't do as well themselves. One of these, advertising, is downstream in the hierarchy of client activities which begins with business strategy. Management consultants generally earn their crust here, but are not so good at marketing strategy - a consultancy gap which agencies might fill were they not now so narrowly fixated with advertising as such. Also both the commission system, and agencies' varying responses to the squeeze on their remunerations, have increasingly meant that those clients who need good advice most are not...

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