Dive Brief:
- Management consultancies may be encroaching on turf more associated with traditional agencies, but IPG CEO Michael Roth doesn’t view this development as a threat per an article on Adexchanger.
- Roth believes agencies have the upper hand on the creative side, and consultancies have an advantage in systems integration, CRM and digital expertise and sees collaboration rather than competition as the natural result of the changing marketing and advertising firm landscape.
- “There is a great deal being written about the convergence that is bringing adjacent industries into each other’s orbit,” he told Adexchanger. “The increased competition that we all read about these days is not as evident to us as the headlines would have you believe.”
Dive Insight:
The changes in the media landscape over the last few years have presented a real challenge for traditional agencies. In 2015 a record number of big brand and agency relationships dollar-wise were put under review. Additionally, common practices within the industry have put agencies under fire, including a scandal from last year stemming from an ANA report finding agencies were receiving media rebates that weren’t being passed along to their brand partners. Adding to these troubles is the fact that Accenture, Deloitte and other management consultants have been beefing up their agency-like offerings, building in-house practices that have attracted some big-name brands.
Along with consultancies entering traditional agency territory, some big brands are also taking some marketing and advertising functions in-house as well.
About the consultancy trend, John Ounpuu, co-founder and partner at Modern Craft, previously told Marketing Dive, that brands are looking to consultancies for “big picture stuff” like modernizing the way marketing is practiced, supporting Roth's message that the two group's offerings are more complementary than competitive.
"Help that goes deeper than creative ideas, addressing things like data management, technology integration, internal operations and connections between the marketing functions and the rest of the business," Ounpuu stated.
