I recently attended the agency debate in Dubai's Media and Marketing show. The session was moderated by Dr. Lance de Masi, president of The American University in Dubai and IAA UAE Chapter President.
The panel included Raja Fares Trad, CEO Leo Burnett Group MENA; Joseph Ghossoub, Chairman & CEO MENACOM Group; Ramzi Raad, CEO TBWA RAAD; Alain Khouri, Chairman & CEO Impact/BBDO; Edmond Moutran, Chairman & CEO Memac Ogilvy and Roy Haddad, Chairman & CEO JWT.
It was reminiscent of a scene from The Godfather when the heads of the families are brought together. These guys were experienced, relaxed and refreshingly opinionated. Most had built up their businesses and been bought by a network and interestingly all realised that things were changing very quickly.
"There are no real partnerships" - this was in response to Lance de Masi asking about the partnership between client, agency and media. The point being that "partnership" is a term used when things are going well and there is no real need to truly invest in the partnership, or more clearly there is no risk to that investment. When times are tough - the partnership disappears and everyone will fight for themselves, or leverage what they can. Not personal, just business and to be honest it's true.
"Body Leasing" - Chairman & CEO of JWT Roy Haddad couldn't really be clearer. "We have found ourselves in the body leasing business. Selling full time equivalents to clients". The distinction was body selling vs talent selling. Do advertisers ask about the person on the business, interrogate what kind of body they are getting? Which ties in the final point, which really nailed the oveall feeling. For agencies to remain fresh and exciting, with motivated empowered staff, the body leasing model needs to change.
"Creating big ideas" - This was how the agencies defined their skill, value, and role. The point was made that they are producing ideas but not getting paid for the affect their work has on the advertiser's business . If anything, encouraging them to sell more bodies (see above if you think I have gone mad !!). On a simple level, when agencies could get paid on the number of times an ad was aired or printed, through to becoming involved commercially.
I came away thinking that things need to change. Agencies are wanting to help solve business problems and not just comms challenges and for many agencies that is going to mean a rethink. Rethink on people, the "partnership", the way they charge and how brave they want to be. A previous post already started to look at this and how it is starting to happen within media agencies.
In Dubai and across the UAE they don't have form for adhering to the rules and aren't too bothered to challenge how things are done. Something is going to have change with these large agencies and businesses that service the comms industry. A braver more emmergent market such as the UAE may have a better "why can't we" attitude to tackle this.