Che la conversazione cominci!

FT.com / Comment / Analysis - Out of the box:
Long-established agencies are floundering in a sea of social media, viral marketing, behavioural targeting and three-dimensional “augmented reality”. They are reacting to these buzzwords, not coining them. And their businesses, little changed since Draper’s day, are ill-equipped to cope. “In the old world, agencies were way out in front of clients,” Mary Beth West, chief marketing officer at Kraft Foods, said in a panel debate in Cannes. “Now ... clients are ahead of the agencies – and the consumer is ahead of all of us.”

Economic pressures are making change in the marketing business more urgent, according to Jim Stengel, who as chief marketing officer of Procter & Gamble until last year was the industry’s biggest single client, before leaving to establish his own consultancy. As marketing budgets are increasingly spent on “service and utility and help for customers”, a smaller slice of the pie may be left for what agencies have traditionally done. “What was already a volatile and changing situation is just accelerating,” says Mr Stengel. However, he adds: “In the long term, it’s positive because I think it has opened people’s minds up to different ideas and models, and to taking more risks.”