April 27, 2010
John Kottcamp
Uncategorized
#ForresterResearch, Adage, agency2.0, Ascentium, Blast Radius, Brulant, CMO, Customer Experience, digital agency, Digitas, IBM Interactive, iCrossing, integrated marketing, Interactive Marketing, marketing2.0, Publicis, Razorfish, Rosetta, Sapient, Sapient Nitro, web2.0, WPP
AdAge magazine just released its 2009 annual agency report today, ranking all the top agencies by revenue and grouping them according to what may be dying distinctions like advertising, direct, media, digital, search and PR. Overall agency revenues were down 7.5%, “the sharpest revenue decline in the 66 years Ad Age has produced the Agency Report.” Although digital agencies overall faired a bit better, statistically gaining 0.5% over the previous year.
But what I find more interesting than anything else is that digital agencies, once considered the mavericks, the outsiders are now about as mainstream as possible if for no other reason than almost all of the top twenty agencies are owned by much larger agency holding companies. The true independents are becoming rare indeed. It started a couple of years ago with Publicis gobbling up Digitas. They have since acquired Razorfish as well. Blast Radius is a part of WPP and the #3 digital agency is IBM Interactive and we know nothing speaks independent more than being a part of IBM.
In fact of the top 20 digital agencies, only 5 are not owned by a much larger company. And of those, Sapient has merged with Nitro, Rosetta bought Brulant and iCrossing appears to become a part of the Hearst empire.
What does all this mean for independent agencies, for marketers and for consumers? Well, sitting in one of the top five remaining independent agencies, Ascentium, makes me feel like I’ve got a bull’s-eye on my back and I’m waiting to hear the M&A types pounding at my door. And perhaps that might not be a bad thing from a financial point of view.
Although for many us who have done both the big agency and the startup, we know why we went for the small option. It’s more fun, we get to work the way we want to and it frees up our creative juices. Frankly we produce better work because we feel like it. That’s the reason a lot of corporate marketers are turning more and more to independent and specialty shops; that’s where the ideas, the new technologies and the partnership mentality come from.
And finally, what about the consumer, do they care where marketing campaigns and experiences come from? Maybe not, but according to the latest from Forrester, watching advertising ranks lowest among consumers as a measure of influence, purchase intent and loyalty. And it’s the big guys who still make most of their money from these forms of traditional push advertising. So go figure.
I’m proud that Ascentium has made it to the #5 position among independent digital agencies this year. And I hope that demonstrates both our preference for going it alone and for our clients’ preference to work with an agency who considers their clients their partners, not their holding company.
March 3, 2010
John Kottcamp
Marketing, integrated marketing, Interactive Agency, Marketing Strategy, Ascentium
Closed Loop Marketing, Interactive Marketing, integrated marketing, Customer Experience, marketing technology, avenuea/razorfish, Customer Relationship Management, digital agency, microsoft, marketing2.0, agency2.0, web2.0, CMO, Ascentium, Razorfish, T-Mobile, Cisco, BSSP, Butler Shine Stern and Partners, Adweek, Precor, Samsonite, experience agency, chief client officer
I am proud to welcome the newest addition to Ascentium’s ranks, David Blum who has joined in the newly created role of chief client officer. David has joined Ascentium after leading interactive for Butler, Shine, Stern and Partners, the Bay area advertising agency, named small agency of the decade by Adweek.
Not only does David bring tremendous talent, energy and experience to the job, but what is more important is what it represents to an agency like Ascentium.
Over the last few years, Ascentium has been steadily building a reputation as one of the nation’s leading digital agencies, producing great work for client’s like Microsoft, T-Mobile, Cisco, Precor and Samsonite. But being the best digital agency is only a milestone on the road to helping redefine what agencies should look like in the future.
At our core, we are an experience agency. We meld passion for big ideas with an obsession for performance that produces engaging experiences, not just on the Web, but across multiple platforms, channels and devices. And to do that, we need to take from what traditional advertising agencies do best; own the “big idea” and manage account relationships and fuse that together with what digital agencies are known for; innovation leveraging emerging channels, technologies and customer behavior.
David Blum’s arrival at Ascentium will help us do that. His experience at BSSP helping to win major AOR accounts like Priceline, Allstate, Greyhound, Columbia Sportswear, Chipotle, Epson and Radio Shack coupled with the work he did managing Razorfish’s web development group in Seattle. Give testimony to Ascentium’s commitment to going beyond digital and leading the evolution into a true Experience agency.
Check out the article in today’s Adweek online about David, www.adweek.com.
August 19, 2009
John Kottcamp
Ascentium, CMO, Interactive Agency, Marketing Strategy, microsoft
#ForresterResearch, agency2.0, Ascentium, avenuea/razorfish, Customer Relationship Management, digital agency, integrated marketing, marketing2.0, microsoft, Razorfish, web2.0
I was just reading Harley Manning’s post on the acquisition of Razorfish by Publicis. It’s a good read, check it out. I posted the following comment on Harley’s blog, but thought it appropriate to repreat it here.
While I fully agree with Harley that Razorfish was always an afterthought at Microsoft and never made sense as a strategic fit, I’m not sure I buy the idea that selling to Publicis is either good for Razorfish or good for its customers.
I don’t believe the fact that Digitas and Razorfish are different types of digital agencies matters nearly as much as that Publicis and Digital agencies in general, have continued to be almost like oil and water. The problem is not simply possessing enough creative juices, Publicis certainly has plenty, and it’s not just having the technical skills that Digitas brings to the table.
The problem is that the cultures and ultimately the business models of traditional advertising agencies and digital agencies continue to be fundamentally different. And as long as that difference exists, mergers of mega agencies will falter.
Now, if Digitas and Razorfish were to be combined and then spun off, there would be an incredible powerhouse. But in fact, there are already some agencies, including Sapient, and my own agency, Ascentium, that have been building up this balance between great creative and deep technology expertise for several years. So in that context, a merger between Digitas and Razorfish wouldn’t produce a new kind of agency, simply the biggest one of its kind.
But it doesn’t sound like it’s a merger between Digitas and Razorfish, it sounds like another attempt on the part of Publicis to integrate a digital agency into a traditional advertising world. And I predict the outcome will be no better than what we’ve already seen with Digitas. As a marketer, it’s a waste of great talent. As a competitor, it’s great news. Big isn’t always better.
June 9, 2009
John Kottcamp
User-generated content, Marketing, Web 2.0, web marketing, Strategy, integrated marketing, community marketing, social networking, social media, microsoft, aQuantive, Interactive Agency, Marketing Strategy, Closed Loop Marketing, customer lifetime value, Customer Engagment, ecommerce, Ascentium
#ForresterResearch, agency2.0, Arc Worldwide, Ascentium, B2B marketing, Blast Radius, Cisco, CMO, Critical Mass, CRM, Customer Experience, Customer Relationship Management, Dell, digital agency, ecommerce, IBM Interactive, IconNicholson, iCrossing, imc2, integrated marketing, Interactive Marketing, marketing technology, marketing2.0, Metrics, microsoft, Molecular, OgilvyInteractive, Organic, R/GA, Random House, Razorfish, Resource Interactive, Rosetta, Sapient, SDMA, social media, T-Mobile, VML, web2.0, Whittmanhart
On Friday, Forrester Research published its Forrester Wave™, Interactive Marketing Agencies – Web Design Capabilities, Q2, 2009. Ascentium was covered for the first time along with other top digital agencies including Sapient, imc2, Razorfish, IconNicholson, IBM Interactive, Organic, Blast Radius, iCrossing, OgilvyInteractive, Resource Interactive, and Rosetta, Critical Mass, Molecular, R/GA, VML, Whittmanhart and Arc Worldwide.
In addition to just being favorably reviewed among such a great group an agencies, we take pride in that Ascentium scored the highest out of all the agencies in the category or customer satisfaction. We credit that in large part to emphasis we have given to growing customer loyalty and constantly measuring it with tools like Net Promoter Scores.
When I joined Ascentium almost four years ago, we were primarily a technology consulting firm with strong Web development skills and some good design talent, but we hadn’t yet made the commitment to become a true full service digital agency. But we got together as a team and agreed that the future was in leveraging technology to advance marketing and to move from advertising to engagement.
Three years and a roster of blue chip clients like Microsoft T-Mobile, Dell, Cisco and Random House, later. We have garnered the attention of the likes of Forrester Research and have grown from a local Seattle-based firm to an agency with offices across the country and internationally as well.
It’s been a privilege to be a part of this journey and to have helped nurture it along the way. It wasn’t always easy teaching technologists and marketers to not only get along, but to actually work synergistically, to create a new model for what Forrester has called, the agency of the future.
So congratulations to all the other agencies featured in the Wave, thanks to all the analysts at Forrester who have seen value in what we’ve created and well done to each and every employee I have the privilege of working with at Ascentium. Just wait for what we have in store for you next.
February 7, 2009
John Kottcamp
aQuantive, Ascentium, integrated marketing, Interactive Agency, Marketing, Marketing Strategy, microsoft
agency2.0, Ascentium, avenuea/razorfish, Crispin Proter and Bugusky, digital agency, down economy, integrated marketing, layoffs, marketing2.0, microsoft, Razorfish
I just read a few minutes ago that Razorfish, one of the top digital agencies, and one my company, Ascentium’s, chief competitors, announced layoffs of 70 people. This is hours after I heard about Crispin, Porter, & Bugusky, one of the brightest shining stars in the advertising agency world, and a partner of Ascentium, announced layoffs of 60 people this morning. Both companies are considered at the top of the industry. Both excel at creative ideas, well-executed and yet both are taking pretty big hits on the same day. And personally, I know people at both companies from our work together at Microsoft. So what does this mean?
The deep answer is I don’t know yet, but it will make me take a look in the mirror and make sure I’m doing everything at my company so that we don’t suffer the same fate. However the more immediate answer is that this sends a clear signal about the progression of this economic downturn. When good companies make cuts, it’s a sure sign that even in the new digital world of marketing, most of the fat must already be gone, because the industry is cutting into the muscle.
My heart goes out to everyone at these two organizations who is out of a job. They say it’s not personal, it’s just business, but having personally been on both sides of the axe. It’s a lot more personal if you’re the one without a job. Good luck to everyone and let’s hope for the change sooner rather than later.
