go-Digital Blog on Digital Marketing

trends in 2009 – open agency model, year of search and social

2009 is the year of the “open agency model.” Many of the largest brands have declared that they are going “open agency mode” in search of lower cost, greater efficiency, and possibly better work. But while this idea may be good in theory, it is very difficult in practice. Having run a “virtual company” since 1996, I know of the challenges, as well as the upside. And the conventional wisdom of “you get what you pay for” holds very true here. I’ve outsourced to China and India to varying degrees of success and usually it took more time to communicate and re-communicate, do and re-do to get things right. And it ended up costing more overall, despite lower unit costs. Furthermore, most clients are brand experts of their own brand, but may not have the depth of experience in managing complex, global deployments … or perhaps even experience in managing photo shoots. Although it may be fun to go on photo shoots, but that doesn’t mean clients can manage that themselves. And having an inexperienced, small agency do it may not be that much more efficient either.

Anheuser-Busch Whacks Retainers for Its Agencies

http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=134630

2009 has also been declared the year of search and social marketing. Many of the biggest brands now realize they must do something in search in order to be found when users are out looking for something. Knowing that 80% of online journeys begin with search (Forrester April 2008), it is more important than ever to be “findable” — after all, if they can’t find you, you don’t exist. Companies are also looking for efficiencies in social marketing — literally having people carry forth their message or amplify it for free. This is a good move because most modern users trust their peers far more than they trust an advertiser’s ad message anyway, according to countless studies.

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