Ad agencies in 2015 are heading back to the future.
That’s where Tom Doctoroff, CEO of JWT Asia Pacific, hopes to see communications going this year. With marketers and ad agencies often being seen as either traditionalists or “cool digital kids,” Doctoroff argues for the timeless principles of brand building and the primacy of ideas in his article, Back to the Future in 2015: Five Predictions for Advertising Agencies. Doctoroff sees five trends in the new age of tech-driven advertising and branding, including these top three:
Consistency
The top-down and bottom-up alignment of a brand idea creates a bond between consumers and brands. Authentic customer engagement in turn gives marketers the freedom to manage the dialogue and messaging.
New Forms of Teamwork
Copywriters and art directors will make way for conceptual distillers and systemic designers, terms coined by R/GA Chief Creative Officer Nick Law. Ideation is still king, but creatives and techies need to step out of their comfort zones and find new ways to collaborate.
Doctoroff doesn’t see the industry’s revenue structure of creative companies and those that facilitate transactional efficiencies changing. For advertising agencies, the timeless basics of brand building still pave the way through the digital landscape.
Less Acquisitions
IN 2015, CEOs will less frequently attempt to diversify their businesses by acquiring digital companies regardless of specialization. Advertising agencies’ recent attempts to be customer relationship management (CRM) specialists, user experience optimizers, and technology platform engineers have been misguided. Ad agencies need to focus on only acquiring assets that allow two-dimensional communications to grow into multi-dimensional brand experiences.
