Agency Diversification: Easy To Say, Tough In Practice

Some great buzz from our latest survey and always interesting are the social media reactions.  The most tweeted was some variation of RSW/US Survey Finds That Digital-Only Shops Must Diversify to Stay Relevant and a small (and often humorous) minority re-tweeted with something like no duh, old news or my favorite, no s**t batman!

I don’t disagree within the context of 140 characters, of course digital firms need to evolve, so do traditional firms for that matter (see Mark’s post for our take on traditional); however I wonder how many agency authors of those tweets actually have a plan to evolve, especially from an agency new business standpoint.

One commenter on our Adweek article, Curt Doolittle, had a thoughtful response to the ‘old news’ take and he brings up several salient points. My favorite being:

So clients are likely, at least for the next five years, to pick both leads and subs as needed. It may be in some cases, that a more digitally ORGANIZED house can do a better job as lead. But just as PR and other services tend to maintain unique value propositions because of their internal cost structures, so, I suspect will the more digital and traditional shops – at least in the near term. That is, until there is enough scale in some of the digital houses that they can afford to keep two lines of business using two capital structures running in parallel. And given that this industry is not exactly a bastion of operational expertise, that seems like a tough expectation.

Near-term is the key here, and the above comment touched on the reality of the situation.

So back to my practice what you preach statement; from an agency new business standpoint, ask yourself what you’re doing now to increase your chances of working with your dream client.  Whether you’re a traditional or digital agency, it’s easy to say “no duh” but obviously much harder to take the time to put a long-term plan into place.

It’s also easy for us to say to traditional firms, for example, “you need to hire/get digital experience.”  Is that realistic for all agencies in this economy-no.  But are you, in this scenario, actively partnering with a digital firm, or actively looking for that partner?

What are you waiting for?