A major article in the recent Business Week vividly captured the massive disruption that is taking place in the global ad/marketing agency business. This disruption is being fueled by the rapid emergence of digital media and marketing technology.

The story focuses on how Saatchi & Saatchi’s CEO Kevin Roberts is trying to cope with all of this (are you also getting a little tired of his over-wrought “Lovemarks” concept?), and how his parent company Publicis is dealing with it. Apparently, Roberts and Publicis are going with a “Brand Navigator” approach to orchestrating all of the company’s agencies and capabilities for a client brand. The concept is essentially what I have always referred to as integrated marketing. Whatever. The ad agency business loves coming up with new titles for the same old tune.

The Business Week story discusses how “old, creative driven advertising” was about “Big Ideas that would connect a brand, emotionally, with millions of consumers.” But, in today’s increasingly fragmented digitally driven world, with blogs, communities, social networks, etc., the “Small Idea is ascendant,” according to the article. And, the agencies that get Small Idea type of marketing are the direct marketing firms and media buying companies, according to Business Week. Presumably creative agencies don’t really get it, or don’t have the tools to effectively operate in the increasingly fragmented, consumer empowered digital media environment.

Can’t say I agree with this last point. I really don’t think the new digital marketing world has to be either/or – Big Ideas vs. the one-to-one targeting of the Small Idea. In fact, I believe Big Ideas are more important than ever. But, I totally agree that how that Big Idea gets delivered is undergoing a digital revolution. We are seeing that now as agencies embrace web videos, widgets for social networking environments, branded entertainment online and even user generated advertising.  

Big Ideas still are the coin of the realm in advertising and marketing overall. That does not (and I believe, will not) change in a world where precise media targeting and analytics are more powerful and accurate than ever. 

FACEBOOK ADS UPDATE:

As I predicted several weeks ago on this blog (right after Facebook launched its new Beacon advertising system), the company was forced last week into an embarrassing about face on the new program because of howls of protest from the Facebook community and much of the press that covers web 2.0. Because of the complaints and bad press about the fundamental privacy concerns created by the Beacon ad program, Facebook changed the product to give users several, more explicit opportunities to opt-out of it (and thus not have their online purchases broadcast to their friends on Facebook). In my earlier blog, I argued that Facebook’s new Beacon program was a step too far in online marketing. More importantly, it represents an unfortunate habit of many online marketers to abuse consumer trust. The “tyranny of the opt-out” is the most visible example of this, but not the only one in terms of web marketing.  

Facebook capitulated — quite reluctantly — on this issue. What they should have done was to make the entire Beacon program opt-in. But, they would have never done that (and the same is unfortunately true of most other web marketers) because they believe it would gut the word of mouth marketing effectiveness of their ad product.

Actually, by making these programs opt-in, marketers would finally demonstrate that they are serious about protecting consumer privacy (which is increasingly under siege online), and truly do care about building and nurturing a trusted relationship with customers, on the web and off.

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