FT Creative Review |
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Paul Edward’s comments on poor agency management are familiar, and read like something of a “cri de coeur”. Our experience, however, would suggest that they are to a significant degree out of date. We have seen a ruthlessness and decisiveness in management in the last two or three years that reflects significantly a generation that passed through the early 1990s and has learnt a number of important lessons. Not least the “cut early, cut deep” philosophy and practice has been common. If not this, at least cutting to get back to profitability. Of course, not every management has done this and some businesses have been so fatally damaged that no amount of cutting would save them. We should be clear here that these observations are made across the whole marcoms sector and not confined simply to ad agencies or networks. Having said all of this, it is hard, if not impossible, to agree with Paul’s conclusion on the need for strong and capable internal managers. And here a distinction should be drawn between entrepreneurial owner-managers and corporate managers in (usually) larger agencies. The latter, particularly within networks, have access to training, internal ‘academies’ and external management courses, including Harvard, which private company managers can only dream about. Since the management systems and controls in such agencies are seldom poor, poor management, whether in a network agency or an independent, usually comes round to people. A common people issue is that of psychology; successful people in the agency are usually salesmen – very personable and persuasive but weak at confrontation therefore weak managers. However, much comes back to the poor value placed on agency services. This is due in large measure to agency managements’ inability to manage for pricing power, and this in turn is largely due to inadequate investment in high calibre people. It’s a vicious circle.
04/06/21
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