‘Agencies need to bring back the attitude of problem-solving’

In a world driven by constant change, it is imperative to break free from the constraints of tradition and explore new possibilities. On Day 3 of Goafest 2023, a panel discussion on 'Media Agencies-Breaking the Old Mold' raised some important concerns related to media agencies.

The panel was moderated by Sam Balsara, Chairman - Madison World, and the panelists were Aditi Mishra, CEO - Lodestar UM; Amin Lakhani, CEO - South Asia - Mindshare; Mohit Joshi, CEO - Havas Media Group India; and Naveen Khemka - CEO South Asia -  Essence Mediacom. 

Answering Balsara's questions about structures in agencies, Mishra responded and dwelled on the need for fluidity within the teams, as it will ensure that learnings move across in different directions. Amin added, “There is a need to break structural automation; agencies need to bring back the attitude of problem-solving as they do for their clients.”

The discussion highlighted the importance of holding agencies accountable for outcomes, and not for saving client's money. Since agencies are not in control of all aspects of the marketing mix, especially distribution, clients need to view agencies in that light. 

Talking about the need for the industry to ensure high-quality talent, Lakhani said the commission and remuneration structures come down year on year and it only throws in challenge for the agencies to recruit people and talent accordingly. “It's an industry-wide problem, and I don't think we'd be able to solve it right now. Maybe, we can pick that up as we move along in our journey. Agencies really need to reflect back and bring in the aspect of technology, otherwise, I don't think that we will go very far,” he opined.

During the panel discussion, Balsara also announced that The Ad Club is planning to put out some guidelines for the remuneration of media agencies.

Speaking about another important area- training of the media agencies people-, Khemka said that the media has come a long way and there was an era where the scale was important, which was the first era of advertising. “Then came the digital era of advertising in the early 2000s, where digital platforms became very important. We are now moving into the third era of advertising in the next 10 years. The third era of advertising, we can call it neither scaled nor digitized or specialized. The age-old way of working for advertising agencies will not work anymore. We will have to offer a full funnel of services.”

Overall, the session served as a platform to inspire and ignite a spirit of transformation across various domains of the advertising agencies through the process of unlearning and relearning in accordance with the advertising era we are in.

Speaking on boosting the value chain in the client’s mind, Joshi said, “In spite of the fact that the agencies are working on every aspect of the client delivery, we are seeing that consultants get a much better revenue or value out of the client’s pocket. The only way to move up the value chain is to train ourselves to start thinking as problem solvers rather than media plan providers. The people at the top are media planners who evolved and become CXOs, we have to understand the problem that the brand is facing, and create a solution for. We have to move out in our own thinking, the way we see a media plan, it has to be a communication plan.”