CM Summit: Agency Panel
I braved the 95+ degree heat to head out of the office midday to head down to the Ritz-Carlton in Battery Park to speak on a panel full of agency executives. Federated Media bankrolled the summit and they spared no expense and was completely impressed for the hour or so that I was down there.
When I came back to the office, I checked Twitter to see who was talking about the CM Summit. Low and behold, there was some tweets about the conference and PaidContent had already released an article talking about our panel and used a quote of mine. I’d like to add some color to that quote and finish the conversation that we started up on stage.
The quote is a as follows:
– Sorting intelligence: Darren Herman, Media Kitchen’s head of digital media: “There will always always be specialist firms in marketing. That’s true on Wall St. Every medium is becoming digital. And when you’re looking at digital TV, online and mobile, there will have to be separate marketing tracks to address clients needs according to those different outlets.”
Let me add some color and context: First off, this question stems from my original call-out when I asked readers of this blog to raise questions/comments about what they want covered on this panel. One of my friends from P&G raised a few questions (as seen here) and the above quote was the response… I believe that there will be specialist firms who eat/breathe and sleep about a specific problem/need. This could be about social media. This could be about search. This could be about auction based display media. This could be about radio spots. Etc. Brands or agencies will still have to manage these agencies as it’s not going to get any easier, but there could be more efficient ways of doing so. Now that technology has proliferated most of our lives, it could be via a group video chat, a meeting in Second Life (a la Crayonville), instant messaging sessions, etc.
Will there essentially be an agency that oversees agencies? That’s a question I don’t have an answer too, and honestly, no one has answers to all of this… the beauty of it is that we’re going to figure it out as we go. There are no right answers, every single client likes something a bit different and we’re in the business of servicing our clients and continuing to push the innovation limits.