Ad Agency

The 4A’s announced that the organization is challenging Nielsen’s decision to combine national in-home and out-of-home television viewership into a single data stream*.  This stream will be used in calculating ratings and inventory pricing at the start of the 2020-21 broadcast television season – and will also affect C3 and C7 ratings.  This decision will negatively impact both agencies and marketers and their ability to distinguish data streams to support pricing, analysis and audience understanding.

Evolving perceptions, however, also requires changes in the way procurement works with its stakeholders inside and outside each company: evolution to procurement processes, improving people’s understanding of procurement, building new performance KPIs beyond just savings and involving external partners to ensure a true perspective.

Numerous studies and guidance papers advise marketers on how to react during a recession to come out ahead of the competition, but very little has been written about agencies.

Real change needs empathy, not sympathy. It takes life experience, not advertising expertise. And it requires rising leaders to re-imagine the ‘fit it in or get out’ industry we’ve inherited.  By William Esparza –  CEO of hyphenated

The Axis Agency announced that its leadership team, Armando Azarloza, CEO, and Carmen Lawrence, COO, has acquired ownership of the brand from its parent company, Interpublic Group (IPG).

‘The Agency of the Future’ gets a lot of attention in the press and at industry conferences. ‘The Agency of the Future’ partners with its clients, solves brand problems through enhanced creativity, provides digital/integrated solutions, attracts the best industry talent, and competes with consulting firms. It is a wonderful dream that will be realized only if ‘The Agency of Today’ is fixed. This is not happening.  By Michael Farmer

LA-based Acento has added advertising veteran and digital innovator, Vicent Llopis, to its cross-cultural team. In his role as VP/Executive Creative Director, Llopis brings a proven record of fostering innovative thinking, particularly in the digital space with some of the top agencies in the business.  

The last few Cog Blog posts have wandered around what the agency of the future might look like post-pandemic, and the degree to which this coming recession will likely reshape the industry, as opposed to simply making it smaller. But what about the tools it will need to work?

LERMA/ announced that the American Advertising Federation (AAF) Dallas has chosen Salma Gottfried as one of the 2020 Shining Stars in Advertising and Marketing. Gottfried is the principal of Brand Management at LERMA/, a Dallas-based next-generation communications agency dedicated to creating disruptive and impactful content for multicultural America.

Chef Merito hired Sensis to drive brand awareness, product trials, and in-store sales among the growing Hispanic market in California.

Last week’s Cog Blog post, on what the agency of the post-pandemic future might look like generated some interesting feedback. This week’s post tries to provide some suggestions (answers would be presumptive) to the points raised, based purely on my own experience. I’ve grouped these around four of the most popular topic areas.  By Brian Jacobs

Agencies and our trade press have been busy opining on what it all means for this or that sector, whilst, one hopes, diligently planning for their own futures. Agencies are due to hit the reset button, but just before they agree to ‘restore factory settings’ it might be an idea to ask whether the old model is any longer fit for purpose.  By Brian Jacobs

BOTTOM LINE: While its likely not totally shocking at this point, we think that April increasingly feels like the bottom, and the linearity of the quarter appears to be much better in May, with expectations for continued rebound into June. Our and the Street’s 2Q20 estimates are largely in the range of where the companies indicated they were pacing for the quarter in April/early May, and our expectations are that there is likely upside to revenue numbers of at least 4-7%. We will be waiting to see how June shapes up, as well as color around 2H outlook before refining our estimates, but numbers are likely going higher.

As the dust begins to settle and we get a clearer view of what the future might look like, one thing is certain: it won’t look like it did pre-COVID.  Agencies aren’t headed back to the office en masse anytime soon. Many aren’t bringing their entire teams back. And many won’t occupy the same physical spaces.  By Mark Duval – The Duval Partnership

Marina Filippelli, who previously served in a double capacity at Orci as COO and Director of Client Services, has been named CEO.

There’s no rest for the weary. With the 2020 scope season in the rearview mirror, it’s already time to look ahead to 2021.

Agency Mania Solutions shared advice regarding to role of metrics in managing agencies. The article examined how answering strategic leadership questions can help determine the proper metrics to use.

People talk about coming out “on the other side” of this crisis, but that’s an ambiguous destination that we may not recognize until we’ve already been there for some time. What if the other side is months out, years even? What do we do until then? When we get there, what will your agency look like?  by Mark Duval / The Duval Partnership

COVID-19 may have put the kibosh on in-person Cinco de Mayo gatherings, but the folks at d expósito & Partners didn’t let our stay-at-home reality put a damper on their quinceañera plans. The agency hosted a virtual celebration via Zoom, marking 15 years since the company’s founding. The program consisted of a retrospective of the last 15 years, highlighting milestones and accolades, followed by a heartfelt dialogue where everyone commented on their personal experiences and ideas for the future.

As I’ve commented in the past, there are plenty of opinions, articles and webinars on how marketers should go about weathering the coming economic recession. Many of these come from agencies, trade bodies, media owners, academics and marketing consultants; most peddle the line that the smartest plan is to keep spending at a time when the competition slows or stops, thus raising share-of-voice. By Brian Jacobs / The Cog Blog