Study Finds Industry Need For Professional Development: Clients, Agencies Split On Subjects

by Joe Mandese , September 19, 2019

The ad industry -- both advertisers and their ad agency counterparts -- overwhelmingly agree there is a need to provide professional development or continuing education to keep their staff up-to-date with rapidly changing industry needs, but there are marked differences between agencies and their clients on what topics they need to bone up on.

The findings, which are based on a survey of 300 ad executives conducted by Advertiser Perceptions for Research Intelligencer in August, indicate advertisers see more of a pressing need for continuing to educate their staff than do agency respondents, but they are most closely aligned around the need to invest in training their organizations for data science, analytics and modeling.

The biggest disparities surround the need to improve their organizational knowledge around endemic advertising and media subjects, such as media research, media planning and buying and strategic thinking.

Marketers also place a much higher priority on training their organizations to deal with AI and/or machine learning than do their agency counterparts.

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3 comments about "Study Finds Industry Need For Professional Development: Clients, Agencies Split On Subjects".

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Ed Papazian from Media Dynamics Inc, September 19, 2019 at 10:48 a.m.
Reading between the lines and making my own interpretation, this study merely confirms what I've been saying, namely that the media function ranks very low as a priority for learning ---or getting involved---at the advertiser or "client" level. Dont take the findings literally. For example, when 43% of the respondents cited media research while 60% cited "data analytics" one might think that media research is only 30% less important. In reality, the spread is far greater in terms of actual practice---probably like 20-to-1. I have good reason to know based on who we sell our Media Dynamics Inc subscriptions to. It's virtually all ad agencies, media buying services, the media, themselves, financial analysts, colleges, etc. but virtually no advertisers. That wasn't the case 25-30 years ago.
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Eric Nelson from Dicom Inc., September 19, 2019 at 11:11 a.m.

I'm a bit concerned to see that agencies lag behind the cleints on every catagory, then wonder why more brands are bringing things in house and ditching agencies. As an agency partner, one of goals is always to keep our learning curve ahead of clients so that we can bring new thinking and ideas to them. We dont just take orders, otherwise where is the calue in hiring us in the first place? Maybe its just the arrogance of agencies in general that they believe they already know enough, while advertisiers are willing to recognize that they dont know everything.

Ginger Cookie from Consultant, September 19, 2019 at 10:12 p.m.

I'd also be curious to have a breakdown of the 40% advertisers/60% agencies relative to titles, employee counts...since small to midsize are likely NOT to have updated skills/ongoing credentials and/or certifications, e.g. AMA certifications like the very large agencies.

Also, if there is a gap with what vertical if any, they specialize in...as part of this survey's questions, e.g.. auto, CPG, retail, financial, since there are corrallaries with leadgen, attribution modeling, content marketing likely "weighted" more to B2C sectors over B2B...hence the point these aforementioned areas need varying amounts of extra "weight" in their media/advertiser departments' arsenal of professional development.