• by Maarten Albarda , Featured Contributor, July 19, 2024

I was fortunate to listen in on a virtual panel discussion on the potential merits, likelihood and challenges of reintegrating media and creative into one service offering.

Many old hands will remember the days of the full-service agency. As the name would indicate, the ad agency offered all services under one roof, and charged a percentage of the media budget for it.

This started with the famous 15% agency commission, and that world started to unravel when that percentage started to become negotiable and  services separated into specialist service silos.

And so today, clients have multiple agencies for various disciplines, sometimes from one and the same agency holding company, sometimes not, and all with different compensation and incentivization models.

There has been a call in the marketing world to recreate the full-service model for those marketers for whom that would make sense.

It was a lively discussion, which included perspectives from the agency side, advertiser side and consulting side. And I started to wonder: Why?

The “why” question has always been a firm favorite with me, ever since my son went through his “why” phase as a toddler. And while he questioned existential issues as to “why is it now bedtime?” or “why can’t I have another ice cream?,”  the “why” I am interested in for this debate is, why would a CMO seek (re)integration of media and creative?

To be clear, there are already agencies that offer full service. I work with one such agency on an almost daily basis, and it’s great, because it fits the client’s operating model.

By the same token, it may not fit other advertisers, simply because their operating model is structured by discipline, or different brands have different needs, or the advertiser has in-housed some of the tasks and does not need an agency for it.

So why would you be interested in it, if you have a model today that suits your structure?

One of the often-mentioned benefits is that creative today is so very tightly woven into where it will appear. Decisions on what to say and when/where to say it should be very closely connected, and that requires the team of creative and media specialists to work closely together.

A second reason is speed: if you want to react in the moment, create tie-ins with cultural happenings, or want to adjust and optimize what/when/where on an on-going basis, again having the teams that should make those calls integrated makes a lot of sense.

But does that require the rebirth of the full-service agency? Or does it require setting up integrated teams powered by a process designed for seamless development and decision-making?

One thing we have learned from COVID is that physical location matters a whole lot less than we thought. Sure, integrated teams function great when they are all under one roof. But even the integrated agency I work with has the team split between a couple of locations and time zones, and also allows its teams to split their work between office days and work-from-home days. And as mentioned, it works fine.

So what do you think? Is reintegration a thing, and does it require a return to all services and teams under one roof?