Clients and the changing marketing landscape

In my interview with Scott Goodson, I expressed my opinion that agencies aren't the only ones who need to adapt to the changing communication landscape:

I'm always reading in AdWeek about clients who demand new ways to connect with consumers. But I haven't seen much of that here. Far more often, I see creatives intuitively going after business opportunities and being shut down by clients who want to know where their damn ad is. Maybe that's just a function of working in a mid-market city. I know we have problems preparing our clients for the idea that we might not come back with an ad.

So take my sentiment and make it way more eloquent and you have this must-read post on The Toad Stool:

I mean we can reinvent agencies all we want. Do away with traditional art director/copywriter creative departments as per Joe Jaffe’s recent suggestion. We just need to find someone who’s going to hire the resulting entity.

Because most clients aren’t set up that way. Bigger ones, anyway. They’re all about “hiring ‘best in class’ partners in every discipline.” Which may have worked 25 years ago, but now basically results in a bunch of overlapping vendors all stepping on each other’s toes and doing what they can to defend their own little piece of turf. So we can suggest changes in store design to our clients. But if they already have a store design agency, they’re not going to care what we think. Or want to pay us for it. (And if the idea does start to get traction, the store design agency sure isn’t going to be too happy about it and will do what it can to sabotage it.)

Go read the whole thing. Very worth it.