I am in the process of moving and recently stumbled on some old Fortune magazines from the 1930's. Flipping through them, I found a number of full page ads from advertising agencies like McCann Erickson that focused on a very specific value proposition. They helped clients solve sales problems.
The copy of the ads were fascinating because they felt more like strategy consultants than creatives. They talked about achieving profits, not impressions.
This got me thinking about the world of agencies today and how they are structured. Most agencies are 'digital' or 'social' or 'print' and organize themselves around specific areas of expertise. This makes sense for agencies to focus on what they are good at, but one major problem begins to form. For each of these agencies, every client problem is seen through the lens of that firms expertise. To a social media agency, most client problems look like a social problem. To a more traditional advertising agency, every client problem looks like something that can be solved through TV and print ads.
All too often companies lose and agencies create work they know will not ultimately be successful, because no amount of advertising can cure a company that has product problems, or customer service problems.
It seems to me like the agencies of the future should be organized much like medicine (not saying medicine doesn't have its own issues). If you are sick and you go to a doctor, typically a primary care provider will run tests, give you a physical, listen to your breathing and heartbeat and then recommend several courses of action. Sometime that might be to take one or a combination of medications. Sometimes the recommendation may be to see a specialist. Theoretically, doctors are instruments of unbiased diagnosis first and problem solvers second.
It seems like agencies should aim to be the same type of partners to their clients. If the problem is sales, more than just advertising should be considered as a remedy. Agencies should have access to a big enough and diverse enough network of specialists that depending on the diagnosis, they could carefully craft a team to address the unique business problems of the client.
If you are an agency without this network you are bound to skip the diagnosis and simply apply your services to a problem that may not need solving. That is not healthy for anyone.