Why are Advertising Agencies and Business Consulting firms failing?
If we reflect on the limit, the goal of any organization is to draw and grab consumers' attention to how it best addresses people's specific problems. That is, how it creates and offers some kind of perceived value - brand, premium products, distinctive services, faster delivery, innovative technologies, order tracking, increased durability and comfort, etc., although often not seen as it is in fact generated - as superior to competing bids.
Ultimately, when circumstance and need arise for that product and / or service, it magically jumps out of the consumer's memory, the brand of the product / service, or the organization in question. The brand reflects the raison d'être and the organizational purpose - who it is - or desires - to be.
Many management and business professionals think that a beautiful slogan and a brilliant, creative message for consumers and the marketplace are enough to generate recognition and increase sales. Ledo mistake. Of course, if a particular brand gives more visibility and contact with its set of integrated processes, those that result in different products and services, the total experience during the client's shopping journey and their respective perception of the firm, can manifest as effectively extraordinary and differentiated. Behind a brand is the true story of what happens in the company and its extended value chain.
Many experts have decreed the death of the advertisement. I do not believe. "Traditional" advertising, if properly formatted, are still capable of leveraging a high level of awareness. Obviously in times of digital economy, there are a number of means to persuade consumers to a competitive offer. Even these social media represent opportunities for a company to distinguish itself from the mass, showing itself to customers and consumers (and many channel members) on the inside, ie how their products and services are operationally produced to solve customers' lives .
Advertising and publicity agencies are experts in marketing communications. They are often responsible for building strong brands for organizations. It is noticed, however, that more and more some advertising and publicity businesses can not "tell and show a story" that customers and consumers consider relevant and resonant in their daily lives. Similarly, business consultants, who undertake to formulate value-adding strategies and organizational actions, are committed to delivering solutions that enable customers to grow in marketing and economics.
Well. Why are advertising and advertising agencies and consultancies also failing?
Fail because to build a meaningful and powerful story it is imperative to know the business as a whole, not simply parts of marketing and sales of an organization-client. Consulting firms, in turn, delve into a single part of the business as a whole, with their cutting-edge methodologies, not understanding the fundamental functional interrelationships within the organization, much less sectoral interfaces with members of the value chain . For example, with primary and / or specialized channel members. These greatly influence the value created, in addition to its processes, adding critical insights to the understanding of the proposed value to the market.
Nothing is as vital as fully understanding what the distinctive features and capabilities are in a business! The superior value flows from an internally integrated operation, as well as externally, with all business partners in the business ecosystem.
A strong brand does not emerge - and it does - only through the use of marketing communications. It is developed, by the use of these tools, but only reaches the "touch" consumers if it builds a strategic narrative corresponding to the image of the integrated processes that makes a firm deliver superior value.
A real differentiating alternative could include greater visibility of customers to operational processes. A view of offices, factories and restaurant kitchens, for example. Greater operational transparency in a restaurant would enable customers to see the inputs themselves and the way their orders are "manufactured". It means being able to increase and differentiate the value being created for them. In a durable and / or non-durable consumer goods industry, it would represent opportunities for the organization of "operational tours" for customers, thus becoming more operationally transparent.
Customers and consumers would come to see and understand better the value that is being created. Imagine the appreciation of employees themselves when interacting with consumers in their workplace! Workers and customers felt more prestigious, more involved and more satisfied.
In both products and services would be possible the emergence of huge avenues for the process of co-creation. In some industries, customers are eager to participate in the particular creation in some of the steps of the value creation cycle.
Advertising and publicity agencies are excellent at creating highly creative advertising campaigns that thrill people. However, these are often out of alignment with the client's business strategy and do not help them make more money in a sustainable way. Agencies should better plan and integrate customer communications efforts to generate more content and direct interaction of customers and consumers with company-brand.
In many advertising agencies there is a shortage of qualified people with knowledge and experience in operations, in addition to marketing and sales. It should be remembered that the essence of a business is rooted in its processes, in all its respective parts that make up a whole. When inefficient, clients leave the company and their brand and become detractors.
Knowing how the business works - operational and functional - is vital to making good judgments and making effective brand / marketing communications decisions, aligning and giving visibility to existing and differentiated capabilities and capabilities. Legitimacy matters a lot.
In order to tell a legitimate and relevant story, it is crucial to fully understand the organization and how all parts fit together and work. Shortage of systemic logic and internal problems are issues that marketing communications can not heal. A brand has to deliver the values it promises to customers; function of every organization and its brand!
Similarly, it is critical for the agency to know the industry deeply and how a customer competes and earns more money. You need to understand sector dynamics in a granular way. Also because with the digital economy, industries have become much more dynamic; sectoral rules are in constant transformation.
Sometimes agencies lack the ability to communicate organizational leadership about the need for deepening to acquire this knowledge. As there is no experience and knowledge of operations and processes, agencies do not see this indispensable imposition. In this way, the agency-client relationship lies in the superficiality, occurring purely between agency "experts" and the client's marketing and sales areas.
Similarly, consulting firms working on specific projects fail to help improve organizational results, given myopic and incomplete views of the internal and sectoral environment. They lack a deep understanding of the internal operational and systemic environment, as well as the essential and value-creating links in the chain as a whole.
The basis for efficient and effective communication, as similarly for a valuable consultancy, both really distinctive, comes from the visibility and understanding of functional integration - based on strategy - from the areas of marketing, sales, supplies, manufacturing, finance, human resources, information systems, etc., together with sector integration, with partners in the value chain, especially the customer, the password for the creation of value and brand.
Finally, in hyper-competitive markets, agencies need to tell business stories of impact and relevance. Consulting firms need a refined understanding of the entire business model and system, inside, key processes, and beyond, the needs and desires of the channel and the competitive sector dynamics.
"Modern" agencies and consultants have already realized the need to grasp organizational processes holistically. They can now innovate with their broad business knowledge. In addition to the organizational history that reflects the identity of a particular brand.
Compulsory understand how an organization competes because of the set of features and capabilities that is valued and perceived by customers. Trivial, but surprisingly unusual to see in agencies and in many business consultancies.
Organizations need to continually innovate! It is innovation - in many industries - to think and act to use internal processes and information to generate functional and emotional value for clients. It can be very valuable to bring customers together, giving them greater visibility and reaching greater interaction with them.
How can business agencies and consultancies be able to innovate and increase their contribution to the success of their clients?
Only with the knowledge of the business as a whole - for greater operational transparency, facilitating a "more open house with more visible windows" - and involving employees and clients working together to aggregate more useful value, is that agencies will be able to build true and strategic narratives, and consultants will develop meaningful and valuable work projects that will result in stronger, more genuine brands - and of course loyalty!
Alex Pipkin, PhD