Hiring monkeys
I have been to the promised land. I have lain in greener pastures and felt the cool breeze of deference blow gently on my face. I have tasted the fruit from the garden of success. Today’s generation believes that such a place is only a figment of one’s imagination; that no such land was promised to the children of advertising in Pakistan. What these advertising atheists (as I call them) don’t know is that this place is not only possible, it existed until recently.
I remember when clients used to see us as equals and value our opinions, not because it was required by policy, but because what we did made a difference.
I remember working for a Pakistani agency and we held our half yearly meetings in cities like Istanbul and London.
I remember our CEO being invited by the global marketing head of Pepsi to share our success story with the heads of other global brand teams.
However, somewhere between then and now, the people in advertising lost their vision and faith. So what has changed and why are we seeing so much mediocrity?
Marketing teams today are facing some of the most difficult challenges I have ever seen. The complexity of managing a brand has become a nightmare, yet with the exception of a handful, most agencies are offering the same old solutions, repackaged with scientific sounding jargon. One may well ask why they are not committing, even when clients want them to. The answer in its simplest form is profitability, or to be more precise, the lack thereof. Earning a fraction of the ROI they used to enjoy a few decades ago, agencies are unable to manage the required delivery. This is not necessarily a local issue; I have worked in regional positions and am privy to the fact that agency ROI is the most pressing concern for the industry globally.
It would be quite antiquated to suggest that anything other than people create great advertising, and with retention scales being at their worst, the average agency cannot hold on to good people.
As a result, to expect agencies to deliver good work is about as reasonable as if I were to expect a five star hotel to serve me a decent plate of biryani (as every avid biryani enthusiast knows, the best plates are found not at fancy hotels but at roadside stalls). This then begs the question of whether better work can be found from the smaller agencies. The recent wins by such agencies at the last PAS Awards are evidence of this.
With a fraction of the expenses large agencies have, the small creative shops enjoy better ROIs. They also offer the compensation and the environment that the current generation relates to. If you think I am crazy to suggest this, let me tell you that at the last MNC I worked for, we had a turnover rate of 70%. But that is not the surprising part. What drew my attention was the fact that all those who left went to mid-size or smaller business and yet managed to get anywhere from a 75% to a 100% pay jump. In one instance, one of my juniors had a 125% windfall! I was part of management and no matter how we did the financials, we were unable to meet that kind of compensation to retain people – there simply are not enough margins in the business with the kind of overheads large agencies have.
Clients are not helping either.
I don’t understand what they teach at business schools because clients don’t understand a very simple concept... if you pay peanuts you get monkeys. This is such a basic business concept, yet it completely seems to elude even the most seasoned CMOs.
Brand teams are forcing agencies to think short term. Because of the financial crunch, agencies hire to fill their ranks with people with narrow and short term objectives rather than a long term vision. Ask yourself what is the key differentiation between your agency and any other in Pakistan? And if there is none, this is not because there is a lack of understanding about what differentiation is; these agencies make their living by differentiating brands. A USP comes from a place of vision, perspective and inspiration. Can agency owners not afford to have people able to bring these qualities to the table?
To fix profitability, agencies are trying to diversify their services by offering media planning and digital, when instead, they should be re-evaluating their core business rather than diversifying an already undifferentiated product and spreading it thinner. This is why when brand teams reach out for digital solutions they end up with platform based tactics rather than a campaign. “We will increase the likes of your Facebook page by 10%!” How that is relevant to the brand’s KPIs has apparently become irrelevant now.