What’s Required to Become Best Advertising Agency?

Everyone wants to be the best these days. Advertising agencies are so obsessed over becoming the best that they can go marching on the roads singing the clichéd bollywood song “I am the best.. I am the best…”. But for actually becoming the best, one must know the criteria to become one of the best advertising agencies. Then the question arises about the deciding factors that will tell you about the best advertising agency.

Every advertising agency has different set of rules and regulations, structures, size etc. As it is said, time and tide waits for none, an advertising agency will not even know that their ‘best’ title has been taken by their competition. So for being the fittest, experts say that the agencies will have to meet a number of incoming trends and challenges in near future. Starting from figuring out data and fighting for top talents to keep up with the growing changes. One has to keep these points in mind:

Customer is supreme

• “It’s the age of the customer, so what we have to look at is what customers will be doing, and then translate that into brands and then into what their partners will be doing,” says Brigitte Majewski, VP and research director for Forrester.
• One of the recurring themes right now is around how customer data will keep transforming marketing. “Brands will need data strategy and the right technology to allow them to analyze data, and that’s where agencies come in,” says Majewski.

Focusing on data science

• Many agencies, these days do not rely on data sciences for their work angle. They are too focused on the creative side that they miss out on this major element.
• Advertising agencies future will be based upon the matrimony of data science and creativity. Meaning, the agencies will have to appoint staff that can decode data in creative ways.

Bigger idea generation

• Creatives will have to be stronger than ever. Because this time it will be for greater opportunities and greater idea generations.
• Top creatives would likely prefer to use their expertise at an ad agency with a variety of clients in a major city compared to one brand based in a smaller market.
• “Let [marketers] bring in the commoditized stuff and then agencies can go back to bringing big ideas. Marketers want that big thinking and they’re willing to pay for it,” says Nancy Hill, former 4A’s president and CEO, who recently created the consultancy Media Sherpas.

Size will definitely matter

• At one time, the ad agency size will matter. No matter how great one’s work is, the bigger brands are always on a look out for bigger advertising agencies.
• One brand might start with a smaller or a mid- sized agency. But once it gets established in the market, it’s going to compete with bigger fishes. For which, it is going to need a bigger agency.
• Many advertising agencies have already considered mergers to become big. For example, Grabowksi adds, are trying to keep costs down for clients by going through mergers, such as Cohn & Wolfe and Burson-Marsteller, or creating a one-stop-shop offering like Publicis’ Power of One model.

History repeats itself

• It will not just be Dickens or Darwin who will give us that old 1859 déjà vu. Just like old fashion, advertisements too will return with a creative route.
• An ad agency should be well prepared for an era to return with a twist.

There is no crystal ball that can actually predict the future of any ad agency, but an ad agency itself can work on its present for making its future predictable and better by itself.