Why you need a new staffing plan
In case you haven't noticed, we're not in Advertising or Marketing Kansas anymore. A few quotes from this past Monday's Interactive Advertising Bureau conference:
"Big-name brand marketers are fed up with traditional media channels and are threatening to shift the lion's share of their budgets online, according to Nick Brien, worldwide CEO of Universal McCann."
"Without naming any specific clients, Brien added they are 'just waiting to increase their online spend to 50% or 60% [of their total budgets].'"
Jaffe's wrestled with the evolution. Garfield's obsessed over the mutations and changes.
And yet, traditional ad agencies continue to struggle with roles, job descriptions and org charts in an attempt to keep pace with the digital marketing age. Their struggle: To remain as much the same as they've always been, to remain familiar to themselves, while purporting to innovate. (And calcification is a subject for another post down the line.)
I hear the same stories every week from friends in long-established agencies on both coasts and here in middle America. Digital Gurus get hired to lead, but no one bothers to tell the troops what's going on. Or the too few "digital" roles inside the agency get passed from one existing department to another ("Maybe 'digital' should be under Creative this quarter, no, Media, no Planning, no Account Service..."). Or the word "strategy" still truly, honestly means, "Once we figure out the TV campaign the rest of the work will take care of itself."
It's not enough for the C-suite to crank out a new manifesto. Change needs to happen on the ground, at all staffing levels. It's time for a real infusion of different skill sets, personalities and roles inside the traditional ad agency.
Here's AdAge to the rescue. As they put it, "It used to be so simple."
The article identifies five roles/hires that ad agencies (and potentially marketers) apparently crave. I say, if your CEO, President, Chief Creative, and HR Director aren't craving and hiring these roles and type of personalities--and hiring them in droves--then something's wrong.
Three of these roles overlap and are somewhat universal--they could easily come dressed in the clothes of a creative as someone from media or account management.
TRAILBLAZERS
"A trailblazing attitude is less a digital skill and more of an inherent quality that the digital age requires."
Was it Ogilvy who said to hire people smarter than yourself? I think every new hire (doesn't matter what job title it is) in any ad agency today should be vetted for this trait. Everyone on the team needs to be curious about new marketing. They need to prove they participate.
TECHNOLOGICALLY CURIOUS
"...everybody needs to be curious about and aware of what kinds of digital innovations are cropping up and where marketers might fit into them."
Okay, so maybe an entry-level finance clerk doesn't absolutely need to be technically curious about Web 2.0 initiatives. But account people better be. Creatives must. It's a given that an account director or a creative director understands the basic technical underpinnings of audio recording or broadcast post production. Well, now there's some new homework, kids. And you can learn it just by clicking around.
ONLINE EAVESDROPPERS
"Conversations are going on all over the web about brands and products -- and agencies and marketers are increasingly looking for people who can help mine those insights... That chatter can also be a source of campaign ideas."
It's simply about listening. Listen to the up-and-coming media planner, art director or junior designer who does participate daily in the evolution of the industry and the craft. If you can't hire, listen. The expertise is already most likely inside yours walls. (And it will leave really soon if you continue to ignore it.)
These last two roles are equally critical, but more specific. Especially if you want to produce anything.
HACKERS
"...people who like to tinker, who understand how to build on top of application programming interfaces, creating Google Maps mashups and Facebook apps."
The great thing is, you've probably got a junior art director or account assistant who programs in FBML nights and weekends. Do a survey of your existing staff to see what skills exist inside the company. Then harness them. Promote those multi-talented individuals. And if you don't have them, make those skills a priority for HR and recruiting. Start looking at those misc skills and hobbies on resumes. Sure, you can go after a highly-skilled PHP, AJAX coder--but you'll be competing with Google. Ad agencies should look for multi-lingual talent, which tends to integrate better than precision specialists with the general agency population.
DATAHEADS
"...companies that are able to use data to their advantage, building relationships and unearthing trends, will be the big winners."
I worked with this young woman at Arnold on VW who had a natural ability (or was it patience?) for numbers. She could crunch. (And I think she's still looking for a job in D.C. if anyone's hiring.) Agencies need all of their account people to be fluent in data. It's a reality. Don't just leave it to the media wonks. Understanding how to interpret and analyze all of the new streams of data coming in is invaluable. This data isn't going to stop. It's only going to get worse.
I also think creative people would benefit from a better understanding of measurement practices and analytics. Heck, you can learn a lot just by fooling around with Facebook Pages. It helps focus your work.
"The increased spending on online ads is coming from a mix of additional allocations and budget shifts from other media, and TV may be in for the largest losses. Among the largest companies, 42.4% of marketing executives recently told BusinessWeek that TV would take the biggest hit in ad budgets in the next few years."
The juggernaut isn't going away.
The solution is talent.
As David Armano wrote in his post on Office Influentials, "Some of your employees may be leading double lives which often blurs the lines between personal and career—they are “super-connecters” who leverage social media tools to amplify their communications and conversations with hundreds and possibly thousands of people across the globe."
Good luck at the interview.
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UPDATE: I opened this morning's email to find a research brief from MediaPost regarding, "a survey by Gundersen Partners among 377 marketing and general Management leaders on new and emerging media... (with) expectations...that 52% of the respondents plan to spend 10 to 30% (of their budgets) and 28% plan to spend over 30% on new/emerging media... 80% of respondents plan to achieve their ideal level of new/emerging media within 2 years, and 35% plan to achieve this ideal goal within 12 months."
"Of the hurdles mentioned, nearly 40% cited insufficient knowledge and 33% stated not having enough time to evaluate them. According to the study, though, Agencies did not score well in meeting advertiser information needs for 'educating and exposing clients to new/emerging media.'"
(View the complete survey results here as a PDF.)
And then I stumbled across Mark Silva's post about marketer Neal Stewart. What caught my eye: "Neal has in his small department a “MySpace” specialist and a “Facebook” specialist while he’s a tireless blogger." Does your agency have those specialists represented? Do your clients?
If your C-Suite, HR Director and talent recruiters aren't burning the midnight oil on LinkedIn and Facebook, don't be afraid to ask why not.