The mobile agency conundrum
A journalist called me the other day as he was writing a piece on whether brands are better off using their existing agency set-up to deliver mobile services, or to use the services of a mobile specialist instead. While I would have an obvious natural bias towards the specialists, having been in that field for nearly 10 years now, it’s not an open-and-shut case.
The argument for the specialists goes as follows:
- Without a thorough grounding in the minutiae of concepting, specifying, and delivering mobile campaigns, there is a wealth of detail that the traditional agency will not be aware of, or know how to communicate to a client. Equally there are issues, such as data charging, which are well-known and acknowledged in the mobile arena but which can cause unnecessary alarm to those not familiar with them.
- While a traditional agency may find a Head of Mobile or similar to ‘do mobile’ at the agency, this provides some severe limitations in what they can achieve. Firstly there is only so much knowledge and experience that one or two people can carry around, particularly when mobile delivery has expanded to include ad-response, apps, media, experiential, mobile web and so on. With the way mobile changes so rapidly, it needs a whole business to stay on top of all these developments.
- Clients should also work with mobile specialists direct because so many great mobile ideas are ‘lost in translation’ while being transitioned from the specialist to the client via an agency. I’ve often seen a detailed and compelling case for mobile reduced to one slide at the end of a presentation, just after the plans for branded squeezy stress balls and baseball caps. In these budget-cutting times mobile is still lamentably the ‘first thing to go’ despite providing measurable value, through a simple lack of understanding.
- And people are a problem. Good people in mobile are like needles in a haystack, and you can probably count the number of really good broad-based mobile strategists in London on the fingers of two hands. Any Head of Mobile should have a minimum 5 years experience in mobile, and while the average traditional agency might just have one, a quick look around the MIG office shows no less than 30 people who qualify.
On the other hand though, there are great arguments for embedding mobile know-how in the mainstream agencies:
- Mobile ideas need to sit at the top table along with all the other aspects of creative and go-to-market strategy. A mobile guru who can shout loud enough, stay on top of current market trends, and deliver effectively has the chance to implement the benefits of mobile really well. Without integration and planning, the mobile channel will never reach its full potential.
- Most mobile specialists, with their background in technology, do not have the capabilities in creative and strategic thinking that their mainstream rivals have. While a few have truly bridged this gap, a mobile idea that falls out of the ad-planning thought process is likely to sit better within the comms plan and chime with the overall creative.
The best solution to my mind is to find a mobile agency with both a hardcore tech understanding AND a creative and strategic bent, and get them around the table with the other agencies working for the client. There’s no need for other agencies to worry too much about the new interloper: after all I’m not going to pretend to know how to plan for TV or write copy, but a helpful mobile agency will take both of these and more, and help them stretch a little bit further into the smallest screen.
By Tim Dunn – this article was first published in Revolution, Oct 19 2009.
