There has been a lot of talk about the sweeping changes moving through the advertising and marketing space. It is all true. Few industries have been reshaped as fundamentally or as continuously as this one. Digital production, the web, social media, programmatic buying, AI: each wave has changed what agencies do and how they do it. Second Wind has written extensively about how to navigate those changes.
This article is about something more basic. Something that feels like eternal, ancient wisdom. The age-old, secret formula for success in the advertising agency business. Read it carefully. Follow it faithfully. Just don't blame us if you end up busier than you ever wanted to be.
Long Lost Secrets of the Ad Agency Business
To succeed in the ad agency business, your agency must have three things.
The capability to write powerful words and portray powerful images customers will respond to.
Words are powerful. Kipling wrote that words were the most powerful drug used by mankind. Words start wars and end them. They create love, make us laugh, make us cry. They cause people to risk and sometimes lose their own lives. A picture, on the other hand, is worth a thousand words.
The most important thing you can do to assure your agency's success is to write powerful words and put forth powerful images. All the great campaigns used words and pictures to create desire. Desire creates sales. Get your creative act in order. Your agency is not creating to fill space or time. It is creating to change the world, one ad at a time.
A thorough knowledge of all the media that surrounds us.
This is the age of media. You can see it in traditional channels, in digital platforms, and most powerfully in social media. The fragmentation of attention across an ever-expanding media landscape has made media fluency one of the most valuable things an agency can offer a client.
Immerse your agency in the age of media. Know where audiences live, how they consume content, and what it takes to reach them where they actually are. That knowledge is not a specialty. It is a baseline requirement.
A business sensibility that aligns your agency with your client's main goals.
As far as the vast majority of clients are concerned, it is all about the bottom line. One of the reasons advertising has been maligned over the years is that it has historically been difficult to measure. John Wanamaker, the great department store magnate, put it plainly: "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half."
That was true for a long time. It is less true now. The results of marketing expenditures can be directly and immediately measured in ways that were not possible before digital media. We are still learning what to measure and refining our understanding of which metrics matter most, but we can see the purchase journey more clearly than ever. That means agencies can speak more credibly to the value they bring to clients.
Clients want agencies who speak their language, understand their issues, and fight alongside them to gain sales, share, and market dominance. The more your agency is positioned as an integral strategic marketing partner, the greater your opportunities to prosper. The more clearly you can demonstrate your value to the client's goals and profit margins, the more embedded your agency becomes as a trusted advisor.
Three things. Powerful creative. Media fluency. Business alignment. They have always been the foundation of a successful agency. They still are. Treat them with respect and they will serve you well.
