Mark Cowan, founding director and commercial director,
Happen UK
New work mindsets for Generation Y
A new agency era is on the horizon. If you’re not already thinking about different ways to motivate, recognise and reward your teams in 2016, then it might be worth putting it on the agenda. By 2020, 50% of the agency workforce are likely to be made up of the Y Generation: those born between 1981 and 1999. This “have it all” generation isn’t about set hours or long-term commitment – it’s about them feeling in control of their own destiny, carving out a career path that works for their own life goals.
You could call them the ultimate career optimists: unrestricted by boundaries or convention, driven by passion and defined by a sense of the experience gained from what they do, not their actual job title or the brand for whom they work.
So what should agencies be thinking about? Essentially, work needs to feel inventive, preferably in a way that helps people to feel like they’ve created the way of doing things. Flexibility is key. There’s a move towards the freelance and the entrepreneurial, so thinking about how to adopt a new work mindset will be essential in continuing to deliver great outcomes for your teams and your clients.
Fern Miller, chief marketing officer, international, DigitasLBi
A media and advertising reunion
As the real world descends into turmoil and real people retreat to their homes to watch Netflix and hope for the best, the two protagonists of the advertising industry’s own romcom – advertising and media – will inch toward a reconciliation years after their bitter divorce.
If advertising held on to the higher ground and the friendship of brands during the split, it was clear that media left with the house. There have been acrimonious disputes and forced smiles over Christmas dinner over the years, and times when it seemed strange they were ever married in the first place.
Still, their grown-up children – social and data – are urging them to get back together. Advertising has seen the brands starting to invite younger, sexier agencies to their parties, not to mention throwing their keys into the “in-housing” bowl, while media is wondering if it should try to add value to the house with an extension.
A formal reunion seems on the cards. We could be looking at a cross-agency tryst within one of the holding groups or a more formal agency merger, complete with a slightly embarrassing party or two at which a visibly matured version of the original party reenact the high-spirited days of their youth with a heaving buffet and too much champagne.
James Whitehead, executive partner, J Walter Thompson
Real action to rebalance the gender diversity issue
If 2015 has been a year of talk, 2016 will be the year of action on the issue of gender balance and diversity. It’s vital that we get this right. Not only is equality a pre-requisite for any industry in the 21st century, but diversity of thought a requirement too. As an industry our thinking drives the advertising that influences culture and society – and the quality, relevance and acceptability of our product is driven by our talent. Imbalance and a lack of diversity adversely affects the work.
I see four key areas of focus for action: encourage young women to take interest
in and join the advertising and media industry; support and inspire women to progress their careers to the highest levels; attract and retain more female creative; create an environment that delivers a manageable work/life balance
Solid steps are already being taken; a multitude of industry groups are tackling the issues. But action must start at home and agencies will need to establish clearer and transparent programmes to deliver action and change. We ourselves at J Walter Thompson have already instigated a broad set of programmes covering the focus areas above and are set on ensuring that we embrace, celebrate and promote gender diversity of talent and thought.
Mette Davis, director of digital and regional innovation, the Marketing Agencies Association
Digital transformation for both agencies and clients
We will see a more aggressive focus on digital transformation within both agency and client organisations. Partly driven by changes in consumer media consumption and purchasing behaviour, our “post-digital marketing world” means that we need to move from the traditional siloed approach to working as truly integrated teams. It’s been a slow start but things are now gathering considerable momentum.
This shift must be driven from the top, both culturally and at an organisational level. For some, the transformation will begin with physically shifting people to sit together, share and learn from each other as well as investing in training. For the more future-focused, it will mean even greater investment in people, process and tools. This may include the appointment of chief marketing technologists, a reflection of the increased dependence of marketing on the use of technology. We will also see an increased number of incubators, spaces for agencies and clients to rapidly prototype new ideas, adopting a more entrepreneurial approach to get products to market more quickly.
The benefits of digital transformation are manifold. First, it will help address the current skills shortage by encouraging collaboration and shared learning, as well as attracting a more diverse workforce to the industry who offer fresh thinking. Agencies will develop creative ideas that are more relevant for today’s consumer and sell more for brands. The ideas will not be restricted to traditional advertising formats, but extend to more innovative, commercially scalable creative solutions that deliver more bang for each client’s buck. This in turn will improve client and agency relationships, reducing the number of pitches and reinvigorating our industry.
Simon Hathaway, president and global chief retail officer, Cheil
and chairman, MAA
Retail as an API
E-commerce is growing very quickly – arguably from a small base – but it’s been fast enough for marketers and agencies to be caught without capability or process to make it work. We’re learning quickly that the ability to use content, especially film, enables brands to tell stories in a way that has been impossible in traditional retail, which means we’re seeing work that is not just driving sales, but also building equity.
Brand marketers and agencies that traditionally focus on brand have very little experience in retail, while shopper agencies typically don’t have depth and capability in content and film. This structural issue will need to change in 2016. Real people don’t care about our marketing disciplines; they simply want the best possible experience from a brand and retailer when it’s time to shop. They already expect to click through almost every brand image into e-commerce and, increasingly, we’re seeing technology that enables them to do that with traditional media formats. This will mean that brands and agencies must start to think about retail as a single API in all forms of marketing communication.
Sarah Todd, chief executive, Geometry Global UK
The rise of real-time, personalised conversations
2016 will see the rise of the retail analytics, where retailers track the movements of customers, engage directly and nudge them to buy well in real-time, in-store.
The catalysts? Free Wi-Fi and mobile everywhere. Until now, we’ve been able to track shopping behaviour and engage with people via loyalty programmes, e-commerce, social media as well as at the till, but real-time, personalised conversation in the physical world has (frustratingly) eluded us.
Geolocative tools are paving the way for tightly targeted, quick-response m-commerce solutions trading on context and shoppers’ desire to be in the know. To succeed, brands must figure out how to stand out from the crowd by delivering more value in the “on the go” moment. Foyles Book Search, for instance, helps shoppers navigate its 600,000+ titles in-store.
At long last, courtesy of strong live retail analytics and mobile, we have the final piece to influencing purchase decision journey. Opportunities for retailers and brands are extensive: staff optimisation, smart merchandising, shopper tracking and personalised, real-time marketing. The benefits to shoppers: sharper fulfilment of need, relevant knowledge and pricing on the ground.
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