Based on what I observed at the summit and meeting with advertising agencies from across the globe, there were three notable trends that we should see more of in South Africa in 2010.
The recession has made every business relook at their working systems and rethink the way they do business. There is definitely a greater willingness by agencies to understand the needs, objectives and values of the client and produce work that will achieve that.
In the years of plenty, when budgets were not a problem, there was a trend to produce good work but not measure the results thereafter to see the tangible benefits for the brand. International agencies are definitely very aware of measuring results and are putting systems in place to really understand the DNA and objectives of their clients and measure the success of their work. South African agencies will, we are sure, place greater emphasis on results for brands and rise to the challenge.
Interestingly, production "decoupling" has been mentioned often as a definite trend among clients. I am not sure how pervasive the practice is in South Africa but it is very prevalent in other parts of the world such as the US and UK and Australia.
What this means is that clients negotiate their own rates with print production companies, post production facilities and even TV commercial production companies. The agencies are then required to use those suppliers and clients get a bulk discount.
Agencies therefore have less control on the budget and choice of suppliers. As this trend will grow, quality control will also have to be managed effectively to ensure that the agency along with the suppliers of choice, are all aligned to achieve the client's objectives.
Naturally, because there are so many parties now involved in the marketing mix, relationships will become far more complex. The management of these multiple relationships will have to become more refined and structured. Intermediaries will play a significant role in assisting relationship management to ensure all are collaborating effectively and efficiently to achieve the objectives at hand.
By implementing a relationship management system, everyone can provide their feedback anonymously along with suggestions on how to overcome any issues or problems to improve communication and inspire greater levels of creativity.
In the last year the Independent Agency Search and Selection Company (IAS) has been an integral part of a number of client/agency reviews. In tough times like these, it is not ideal to be changing agencies. There needs to be more attention given to monitoring, evaluating and improving existing relationships.
Lastly and not surprisingly, digital and social media platforms are now an integral part of a client's overall marketing strategy. The great thing about digital is that briefs can be far more business specific and agencies can obtain instant results and thus measure the results of the campaign quickly. Agencies have developed “analytics” which means they can measure, collect and analyse internet data for the purpose of understanding and optimising web usage.
Consumers are really influenced by what they see and hear on social networks. Previously digital was a nice to have; however, the trend now is to incorporate digital campaigns from the beginning and design the rest of the strategy around that.
International agencies are already using social networks such as Twitter and Facebook for their online campaigns. One such example is the new online campaign designed by Euro RSCG called "Tck tck tck: Time for Climate Justice”. According to the agency, the goal of the campaign is to get global support for making the right decisions at the United Nations' Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen taking place in December. The campaign which can be viewed on a number of social media platforms encourages people to watch the video, download the theme songs and post their own video with possible solutions to encourage climate change.
Campaigns like these will become more popular in the future with the aim of it to create social movements and bring on change.
In addition, brands need to be masters of mobile. Therefore understand how and what they can communicate on mobile devices that is effective and not intrusive.
Spending time with agencies and the other intermediary consultants at the AdForum Worldwide Summit was fascinating and thought-provoking. So much is happening in our advertising world and we have so much to do. I was, once again, very proud to represent South Africa at the summit and felt proud that our country is definitely keeping up with these trends and indeed setting a few of our own.
