Are agencies on the way out?

Award winning US drama Mad Men may have painted a picture of the all-knowing advertising agency in decades past – once upon a time wowing their clients with the tricks of the trade and celebrating or sealing deals with a three-martini lunch – but many are now arguing that such an idea might just be a thing of the past.

A group of students from the much celebrated online digital marketing course Squared Online has trawled through the research to produce an infographic that concisely traces the evolution of the client-agency relationship from the ‘Mad Men Era’ into the future. And what they’ve found does not bode well for the agency-folk among us.

You only have to look at statistics such as the drastically diminishing client-agency relationship tenure (down from more than eight years to less than three years over the past 30 years), combined with the increased focus on ROI, to see that agencies could be facing a battle for survival.

And, as the infographic goes on to show, much of this has been brought about due to the rise of online marketing and the increase in ‘big data’ and automation. In order to take advantage of these trends and stay close to their customers, many companies are increasingly restructuring to develop expertise and bring in technology to manage these new areas in-house, thus effectively becoming their own ‘clients’.

Communications specialist Stefanie Agar, one of the students on the course, commented:“Squared Online has really helped me look at the impact of digital from all angles and working with my team to develop this infographic has been a fantastic way to bring all the learning together.

“It does make me think, in this age of disintermediation and direct content creation, who needs a Mad Man in today’s DIY, data-driven world? How can agencies stay ahead of these trends?”

View a snippet of the infographic below, view the full data here, and follow the group at @squaredstudents for more insights on the rise of the client.