CANNES — It’s a mad, mad, mad, mad world if you’re an ad agency exec right now. On the one hand, you have a palette of unlimited possibility at your fingertips – on the other hand, so does everybody else.
Renowned media and technology M&A advisor and banker Terence Kawaja of Luma Partners is releasing a report, “Back To Mad Men”, that paints a stark picture of the challenge. He says agencies have been “caught flat-footed” by recent technology developments.
“They don’t necessarily have the skillsets necessary to manage their complexity, nor the technical proficiency for that kind of world,” Kawaja tells Beet.TV in this video interview.
“Lately, we’ve seen a big squeeze on agencies, where all these marketing technology companies. The agency is under siege from all these sides.”
Kawaja credits WPP with having invested or acquired in data marketing capabilities and cites Publicis’ acquisition of Sapient as another example of how agencies are fighting back. But, he adds: “I’m not sure if it’ll be enough. There are competing interests for those kinds of capabilities from companies that are far more capable than ad agencies.”
More on the turmoil in agency reviews reported in the Wall Street Journal.
We interviewed him on at Cannes aboard yacht for a series on the future of TV presented by AT&T AdWorks. Please find more videos from the series here.