• by Seana Mulcahy , August 6, 2007

Hello, dear readers. I sit here banging away at my keyboard with my head spinning yet again. I said it a couple of weeks ago, and unfortunately I have the same sentiment this week: What the hell is up with our industry? There is so much money being spent on big acquisitions. I won't go there, as not only I but many of my colleagues and cohorts have beaten that topic to death.

I'm having a hard time figuring out who owns what these days -- or who works for whom, for that matter. And let's talk about reps for a moment. Great, if all these sites are being acquired, merged, whatever -- then can I have one sales rep versus five? Who is my rep anyhow? Are the prices the same? Is the inventory better?

Now after all the never-ending news with Web publishers on a spending spree, we hear from some big agencies. Let me back up for a second. Remember when it seemed as if almost every agency was bought out by some holding company? Most of us had had little to no exposure to holding companies in general. Now it is something we rarely think about.

It is rarer to see a shop that hasn't been bought out. Many of us agency folks have jumped from shop to shop trying to survive and succeed in the digital arena for many years now. Ironically, most of us have resigned and taken a job at a competitive agency, and that agency is owned by the holding company that owned our former agency.

As many of you know, I grew up in agencies -- first in offline, then online back from the onset of its productization. I'll caveat this, too: I wouldn't/couldn't bite the hand that feeds me. Well I've been out of that day-to-day life on the inside for about four years now, running a digital media and marketing consultancy. Due to many of my clients (publishers, tools providers, brand marketers and agencies) I see a lot more behind the scenes.

I guess the big duh factor is that most brand marketers don't trust agencies. Oh, please, agency people -- don't gasp in horror or throw eggs at my blog today. You know it's true. Just take meetings, for example. When you work for an agency, that's all you seem to do. You miss meetings to go to meetings. You have meetings to plan meetings. You see people at meetings (in person and via the Web), and on conferences calls that you have never heard of. Sidebar: I learned early on, be very careful whom you introduce yourself to. I once introduced myself to my "partner" on the business thinking he was my client. And yes, it was right in front of the client(s).

Speaking of clients, I am often now representing them (mostly brand marketers) when they have calls with their agency. Many times, while the call box is on mute, clients look frustrated not knowing just who the hell all these extra people are on the call. How is this efficient? Well, it isn't. I get a lot of business because of it. Add up the billable hours of everyone that's, say.. hmm, I don't know, on a conference call. I don't care who it is, client side or agency side -- eight times out of ten, I'd bet the client is losing money from being billed on time. I'll stop myself here.

Now today look at all these big shops. I have worked for several and respect them. However, welcome to the land of WTF. Why are all these big shops that decided to do stupid things like take media, creative or the entire online shop separate now making huge press announcements that they are realigning or rebuilding, etc.? Furthermore, why has this recent activity gotten so much positive buzz in the press? After all wasn't the debundling and separation of such organizations a really dumb move in the first place? Who wants creative and media separate? You never see this in the offline world? Who wants offline separate from online (if that's what you had in the first place). Ah, hello, aren't these shops just coming full circle because they need to survive? Post to the Spin blog and share your thoughts. Obviously I'm not afraid to say it, are you?