ADFORUM 2014 NEW YORK SUMMIT

From 6-10 October 2014, the 13th Adforum Worldwide Summit in New York gathered the world’s leading Agency Search consultants to meet privately CEOs and leadership teams from 25 agencies.

The goal of this unique event is to share advertising luminaries vision, to get « the view from the top » and engage in a conversation with the people setting the agenda of their agency. Through the variety of agencies, it offers an unparalleled perspective on the evolution of the industry and the position of its major actors.

About participating consultants

In the past 12 months, the 30 “pitch” participating consultants from the 5 continents handled an estimated 825 search assignments, of which half global and regional, accounting for an estimated billing exceeding USD 9 Billions.

According to the Association of American Advertising Agencies, search consultants manage about 60% of all creative agency reviews in 2011.

Geographical split of practice Split of search by discipline

 

Consultants reported strongest growth from digital, social and shopper marketing agencies reviews. Alltogether specialized agencies searches account now for ¾ of Agencies searches handled by consultants.

About participating agencies

CEOs of 2 Holding Cos, 5 Integrated, 1 Media, 2 Creative Hubs, 5 Digital, 2 Activation, 3 PR and 4 ‘decoupled’ agencies composed the picture of the 2014 Adforum Worldwide Summit.

Some of the major networks newly appointed CEOs of Publicis, JWT and Saatchi & Saatchi and leadership from Lowe and DDB discussed rebound strategies. Media Agency network OMD Worldwide led an inspirational meeting about the increased importance of creativity in the revolution that Digital brought to media planning!

And while big networks showed how they are reinventing themselves, new global agencies are expanding from traditional grounds (CP+B, The Martin Agency) as well as from different roots such as Activation (Iris, Project:worldwide) or Digital (R/GA, Huge). Will they be pushed around at their turn by the smaller, younger, greedy, digital native shops (Brooklyn Bros, Work & Co and Story)? And with the explosion of social media, will PR agencies take the lead in brand communications? Luminaries from Edelman, Weber Shandwick, Hill & Knowlton and JWT have debated the idea.

The Adforum Worldwide Summit is also an exploration of the ever changing landscape of marketing communications. While networks are fighting for a better integration, their holding Companies are hosting a new breed of agencies (Craft, Tag, Prodigious and independent Fred&Co) offering advertising production directly to advertisers.

Main findings:

While in the past Creative agencies felt the need to convince of their digital expertise and digital agencies of their creativity, Agencies are now clearly driven by the social media agenda i.e. the way of life of the millenniums and its consequences on how to build brands.

One main conclusion may well be that Creativity is still the main driver of successful communications. Only it may take more diverse and numerous paths. From the ‘big idea’ executed on all touch points to the ‘brand story’ delivered on multiple platforms, the focus is to engage consumer; hence the buzzword of the week: Brands are not about commerce, they are about culture.

It is about making sure the brands they advertise are talked about, famous. Therefore, Content is the name of the game & Relevance the name of the winner. Insights are sourced in the user experience and Activation is playing an increasingly important role in the mix.

Another trend is that explosion of information accelerates content consumption and calls for a permanent need for new content to stand out the crowd. And the multiplication of communications channels call for specialization and cost efficient execution.

And finally, as Brand value is increasingly its capacity to build a bond with its consumer, it is logical to see Agencies thriving to develop new products inspired by Brand communications.

Click here to see the full agenda of the week

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