Just got off the phone with an advertising headhunter who told me the advice I gave her two years ago, (start repping interactive people,) is a wave now hitting her beach. Agencies are furiously ramping up only to discover they don't have the management vision in place to deploy the talent they are so rapidly hiring. The top echelon managers made their bones in traditional advertising which focuses on building messages, and have no idea how to re-organize themselves around the creation of consumer solutions. It's so much more painful then they realize. It's not something you can bolt on like an addition to a house. It's a gut renovation.
They would do well to focus on structuring their organizations less around the creating of "product", ads etc. and more about the creation of consumer incentives to do what the client wants them to do. To quote Steven Levitt in "Freakonomics". Incentives are just things that get people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing. If agencies and marketers in general focus on creating incentives for consumers and build organizations with that as core DNA, the rest will follow.
They would do well to focus on structuring their organizations less around the creating of "product", ads etc. and more about the creation of consumer incentives to do what the client wants them to do. To quote Steven Levitt in "Freakonomics". Incentives are just things that get people to do more of a good thing and less of a bad thing. If agencies and marketers in general focus on creating incentives for consumers and build organizations with that as core DNA, the rest will follow.
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