The Agency as the Educator

We’ve noticed a trend in the past few years that has been interesting to watch from the agency perspective. An Ad Age article summed up the education challenges for marketers with results from a recent Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) report conducted by IBM that surveyed more than 1,700 CMOs. The biggest takeaway was that 78 percent expect more complexity in the next five years, but only 48 percent are prepared to deal with it.

Also of note was how personally underprepared CMOs are, based on the survey numbers. For instance, while 82 percent said they plan to increase their company's use of social media, only 25 percent said they needed social media expertise. We don’t believe our clients have to be social media experts to understand the channels, but if they’re not actively participating with it, then we’re a long way from getting them started.

Throughout the past few years, we’ve seen education become even more important to our client relationships. Video, search, social, mobile, tablets, QR codes, etc. have become increasingly complex and are evolving at an ever-increasing rate. Thus, we’re convinced the agency has to play a larger role in educating the client. This education includes the ability to stay up on changing techniques and technologies, as well as performing the R&D to know how to use them without making the client the guinea pig.

The lesson for CMOs is the non-negotiable value of an ongoing marketing education. You should be diving into new areas so you have a first-hand understanding, hiring internal staff who can maneuver the changing landscape and finding an agency that is willing to educate you and steer you in the right direction as the landscape continues to shift.

About the author::
Jason Therrien is the president of thunder::tech.

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