Mirren New Business Conference: The Ad Agency of the Future

What an event, the Mirren New Business Development conference is rolling out this week in New York. Leo, Marc and I are here engaging with some impressive creative industry leaders and Listening to a great line-up of speakers.

I have just finished a session entitled “The Innovators: Designing the Next Generation Ad Agency” with panelists from BFG9000, Pod1, Mistress, and LeapFrog Online. Here are a few highlights:

1) Creative agencies need to work more like the film biz. Bring groups together to focus on a project and then regroup for the next.

2) Core Staff are Key: Titles are changing and roles aligning with Account Executives, Strategy and Project Management activities being the focus of successful agencies.

3) Key client-facing activities need to focus on ensuring a fit before engaging. The divorce is far more painful and expensive.

4) Find a size that allows you to scale as required, but keeps you profitable.

5) Engage financially with the client. Build a relationship where you are “Close to the Money”. More agencies are building revenue share agreements that produce tangible ROI measurements.

Speakers Gerry Graf, Fadi Shuman, Christian Jacobsen, and Jason Wadler were all bullish on the future, agreeing they need to be close to the client and understand the business better than they do.

On to the next session.

Chris