IMC agencies should re-think their business models and relationships to survive present realities – Nnenna Onyewuchi
By Kasim Bakare
Creative amazon and Director of Strategy at Yellow Brick Road(YBR), Nnenna Onyewuchi, has charged agencies in the integrated marketing communications(IMC) industry to re-think their present business models and relationship in order to promote a sustainable client-agency relationship amid the dwindling ad spend in the advertising ecosystem.
Speaking during an exclusive interview with MARKETING EDGE, the prefect strategist, as she is fondly called, noted that the present economic realities have changed the whole dynamics of client-agency relationship as clients now expect a more holistic and robust relationship from the agencies. She therefore urged agencies to re-think their business models and relationships to toe this new line of thinking in ensuring a sustainable relationship between clients and agencies
Hear her:”I think the first step is to re-imagine our relationship with our clients. Many agencies are stuck in a place where they are a vendor; someone focused solely on executing campaigns. What clients want is a business partner. Someone who understands their sales process, the challenges they have with distribution, even internal culture issues. Agencies need to concern ourselves with the issues that keep the CEO up at night, not just the CMO. If a client’s management sees you as useful, as contributing to their bottom line, as opposed to just being a cost centre, that will go a long way to changing the relationship”.
Continuing, she said: “The next step is to re.imagine our businesses. The days of agencies surviving on fees alone is long gone. We all need to start diversifying; thinking of ourselves as product owners. What are the gaps in the market that we can fill? Agencies have a unique set of skills, beyond just producing advertising. We need to start looking at our skill sets differently and seeing how we can monetize them”.
Meanwhile, the cerebral amazon has expressed her views on the seeming unhealthy competition among agencies in the industry especially at this critical time when reduced ad spend has induced stiffly competition among the agencies
“We are never going to be without competition. That’s like asking banks not to compete or FMCG companies not to compete. When we are all fishing in the same pond, there will always be a level of business rivalry”
While admitting that competition is a global phenomenon, she however advised agencies to collaborate to grow the industry. The YBR strategy boss said: “ I do think we, as an industry, need to be better about collaborating on industry issues; those things that affect all our businesses. In much the same way as the banking industry comes together to lobby for themselves. AAAN has been doing good work in the last few years of bringing the advertising agencies together to think through, to work through, and find solutions for those challenges that threaten us all.
She added:“Greater collaboration between the different bodies would be a great idea. Each discipline within the IMC has their own association. Perhaps we need some sort of inter-association board or even just a regular convening. That’s where we can tackle issues around policy or broader client related challenges. The truth is we are all facing the same problems day in day out, In the end, it is in our own interest to solve those problems together”.
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