Events and Conferences

Bryan Wiener, CEO of 360i, presents his vision for the future of the advertising agency and for brand building at the IAB Annual Leadership Summit today. The following Q&A reveals some of the key themes addressed in his keynote.

Join the conversation by leaving your comments below or by tweeting us @360i or @bwiener.

1. You’ve proposed that agencies are not only necessary for the future, but that we’re actually on the cusp of a golden age for agencies. What’s the importance of the agency in the future of brand marketing?

There is a tremendous opportunity for agencies to increase the value they provide to marketers, but this comes with recognizing the opportunities and seizing them. With consumers in control like never before and media fragmentation proliferating, brands need strategic partners who can help them drive marketing innovation and stay ahead of changing consumer behaviors. Marketers need agencies to step up and be change agents.

A huge part of this means that most agencies, especially the traditional holding company agencies, will need to reorganize themselves to be more aligned with consumer behavior and marketer needs, which are increasingly digital in nature. Reorganizing for our golden age will be tough, but I believe it’s critical for the entire marketing ecosystem.

The agency of the future should deliver innovative strategic thinking that’s not driven by or beholden to any specific tactics or platforms.

2. What’s changed in the marketing landscape that necessitates an agency of the future versus the agency of the present?

There are really three key implications of this change in consumer behavior that impact the future of marketing and how agencies need to adapt.

For one, thanks to Google and Facebook and Twitter, individuals have more power over shaping brand perceptions than ever before. And it’s not just for a brief moment. None of us can afford to forget that when consumers communicate online, they’re leaving a permanent digital record for others to see. Consumers are not just influencing short-term opinions about brands. They are affecting brand reputations long-term. Marketers and their agencies need to establish relationships with consumers where they are spending their time. This means building the foundations of your brand footprint in search and social because that’s where consumers are creating and consuming content about brands and their competition the most.

The second implication I see is that growing brand strength now means a long term commitment to relationship building – like a marriage. The wedding is not the end game. If the core of a brand’s value is the sum total of how much extra people will pay, or how often they choose one brand over the alternatives, then establishing an emotional bond and building long-term relationships to drive brand loyalty are critical for success. Digital is the key that allows for that – a direct, unadulterated relationship between consumer and brand – NOT a cheap transactional one-night-stand. So any agency that wants to add strategic value to marketers needs be an expert and fostering relationships between brands and consumers across all channels.

Finally, the agency of the future needs the marketer of the future. Marketers need to play a major role in dictating the pace of change. Digital engages consumers throughout the marketing funnel, simultaneously in real time, which requires brands and agencies to adapt. The old, siloed model of advertising, promotion, sales, customer service and IT just doesn’t cut it anymore.

Put simply, if marketers really want to rapidly and radically impact change in the agency ecosystem, it starts with how they allocate dollars. If you buy into the first two implications, it changes the way you fund your marketing efforts and organize around it.

3. What’s the way forward – what do agencies need and how do they need to be aligned in order to be more relevant and more valuable strategic partners to marketers? How do we as an industry work to reach the golden age?

Frankly, no one model will likely be perfect for every marketer. I believe the prototype for the agency of the future is one that is responsible for both brand planning and the core elements of earned, paid and owned media executions. This agency shouldn’t come from a broadcast-centric background and it should have digital in the center, in its bones — because that’s where consumers increasingly are.  But the agency of the future would not be biased toward digital, either. Ultimately, it will have traditional media planning and buying capabilities as a core service offering but this shouldn’t be the driver of the agency’s strategic thinking.

As agencies we should be most focused on building a model that can provide the most value to a variety of marketers. To that end, I think there’s a core group of capabilities that are indispensable regardless of the model.

1. Every agency needs to excel at using the Internet as a complement to traditional research tools to mine the consumer insights that inform brand strategy and fuel continuous improvement of marketing programs. This is very different than the typical pre and post campaign insights and analytics and we’re done approach.
2. Every agency also needs to have digital expertise in their DNA, with search, social and mobility — three things that have completely transformed consumer behavior — as the three key legs of the stool.
3. Finally, agencies must be platform and tactic agnostic and marketers need to give us the freedom to be. Mobile, online, TV, print — who cares? It’s about driving brand engagement and achieving the marketer’s core objectives, using the platforms and tactics that will best help us get there.

What do you think the agency of the future holds? Join the conversation and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

The global Social Media Week Conference dominated buzz in the digital world this week, with some of the foremost players in the space joining forces in New York (and in the five other host cities) to discuss the most hot-button issues in social. We were honored to be a part of it all as speakers and as global Communications Partner. Here’s a quick look at what we said – and saw – during Social Media Week 2010.

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During Social Media Week’s panel on Social Graph Optimization that I had the pleasure and honor of moderating, I was able to get in a bunch of the questions that I had for the panel, including Meebo’s Seth Sternberg (@sethjs), Wiredset/Trendrr’s Mark Ghuneim (@MarkGhuneim), Droga 5’s Hashem Bajwa (@HashemBajwa), and Anna “the analyst” O’Brien (@annaobrien).

You can read the official SMW blog post by Amanda Rykoff (@amandarykoff) for the details of what was covered there, including what social graph optimization really means (I’m not as convinced as some panelists that we need this as a discipline separate from social media optimization), what marketers need to measure, and where mobile location-based services fit in. That last discussion was inspired by @BukolaE, who’s not even in New York City currently but participated via social media. If you’re so inclined you can catch the whole session’s video.

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While at the Consumer Electronics Show, I moderated a panel at Digital Hollywood on “Mobile Commerce and Content: The Mobile Web, Texting, Search, and Advertising Options.” As you can see, the panel covered a lot of ground, and I can’t begin to capture it all. But I did take some notes and I’ll share those here.

I need to thank my panelists here for all their insight, and I wish I could have done the session more justice, but look out for any of them at other events as you’re guaranteed to learn a few things.

• Ali Rana, Vice President, Digital Strategy, Dynamic Logic
• Jamie Wells, Director, Global Trade Marketing, Microsoft Mobile Advertising
• Brian Johnson, Senior Vice President, Americas and Asia Pacific, mBlox
• Thomas Roberts, Chief Product Officer, Digital and Mobile Services, kgb
• Pooj Preena, CEO, Groupe Hi-Media USA;
• Greg Fawcett, co-founder, MobiAd Sales

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After just coming back from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, a lot of the gadgets and glitz seem like a blur. The exhibit space alone took up over 30 football fields, and while New York Jets quarterback Mark Sanchez may be able to cover that much ground in a few days, I’m still building up the stamina.

While it’s not a show for marketers, many of course take part. I had a few missions when I went:

• Get a heads up on some emerging technologies that may have an impact on the brands we work with
• See where emerging digital fields like social media and mobile media play a role in the consumer electronics developments
• Catch up in person with a lot of the social media royalty who head out to that desert oasis, notably at events like Social Media Club’s nightly bashes at the Venetian and the annual It Won’t Stay in Vegas party for bloggers
• Connect with some speakers and attendees at Digital Hollywood (I moderated a panel on mobile)

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360i’s SVP of Emerging Media and Client Strategy Sarah Hofstetter spoke on a mainstage panel at OMMA Global this week, “The Mommy Bloggers – What It’s Like When Marketers Really, Really Want You.” Below are excerpts from the session.

Moderator
Catharine P. Taylor, Columnist, MediaPost

Panelists

• Carol Cain, Travel Writer, Managing Editor, NYCityMama.com
• Yvonne DiVita, President, Windsor Media Enterprises, LLC.
• Liz Gumbinner, Publisher, Editor-in-chief, Cool Mom Picks
• Sarah Hofstetter, SVP, Emerging Media & Client Strategy, 360i
• Kate Thorp, CEO, Real Girls Media

Cathy: What do you like or dislike about the term “mommy blogger?”

Liz: It feels like it’s a diminutive, but it’s the only term that describes the author and not the audience. Tech bloggers and gaming bloggers describe what they write about. I call myself a parenting blogger. In a way it does us a disservice because it’s a very complex and very different audience.

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Last week, hundreds of marketers converged in New York at 360i’s Digital Marketing Summit to learn from each other, share experiences, and get a handle on the trends, marketing strategies, technologies, and ideas that will matter most for them over the next year or so. It may take us weeks or months to digest everything we learned there, but we want to share a few highlights from a number of the sessions while it’s still very fresh, even if there will be more to say later. You can also find more coverage of this event and other in the Events and Conferences section of our blog.

Opening Remarks: Bryan Wiener, CEO, 360i

• First, if you’re wondering whether social media’s a fad, watch this Socialnomics video from Erik Qualman, covering everything from mobile tweeting to digital matchmaking.
• The bigger question Bryan asked was whether evolutionary change is enough. Hint: it’s not – and that big, fat NO applies to business strategy, organizational structures, and marketing.

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