PASSENGER

Adweek just posted this article based on a Forrester Research report. The edict is that agencies need to evolve by organizing themselves around communities that are relevant and mutually beneficial for their clients and their clients' customers. Not only does this opportunity provide more value to an agency's clients, it also stabilizes the relationship between the agency and the client - with their clients' customers acting as strategic collaborators, and offering a valuable perspective.

This application of Customer Collaboration is clearly a huge opportunity for agencies to be more effective, more focused and able to keep up with the rapidly evolving marketplace. After all, an agency's fundamental purpose is to help a brand communicate with its current/future customers, and the time has come for this to take the shape of a conversation.

-By Brian Morrissey

NEW YORK Forrester Research believes today's ad agencies are not well-structured to take on tomorrow's marketing challenges, needing to move from making messages to establishing community connections.

In a new report, the research firm paints a grim view of the current state of advertising, which it believes is in "a world of hurt" because consumers are tuning out the messages the industry is predicated on producing. Instead, it believes shops need to be organized around communities, not disciplines. What it is calling "the connected agency" would not only know certain communities but also be active members of these groups. Pushing messages would give way to encouraging voluntary engagement, and ongoing conversations would replace time-based campaigns.

"I can't say there's an agency now that's the agency of the future," said Peter Kim, a Forrester Research analyst and co-author of the report.

The research firm is certainly not the first to assert that agencies haven't kept up with changing consumer habits and technology. Accenture in November said the shift from analog to digital media is catching shops flat-footed. more