The last time we were in Amsterdam for an AdForum Worldwide Summit was in 2018; it seems like a lifetime ago and, of course, was pre-pandemic or before the world changed. This year, we visited the city again, on 6–9 November 2023. It was really great to be back in this wonderful, creative, entrepreneurial melting pot, where the average number of different nationalities in agencies is greater than a minimum of 10.
We were told that 65% of all agencies are back full-time in the office and, with respect to the 16 agencies we visited, most are now 100% full-time office-based. There’s still some hybrid work but that tends to be much more on the marketer/client side, with many of the financial institutions being permanently hybrid. So, all of the offices we visited were lively, active and back to full culture — it was great to see.
We saw four ‘categories’ of agencies as identified by AdForum:
Heritage agencies reinventing themselves
Newcomers redefining the digital space
New networks building integrated offerings in multi-specialist collectives
Newcomers still capitalising on creativity as their core offering
These four categories demonstrate what’s really happening in the advertising industry currently and also provide clues to the future. They also lead to the key question: Are heritage agencies definitely part of our past?
#1. Heritage agencies
Heritage agencies are reinventing themselves. Look no further than Forsman & Bodenfor, which is positioning itself as a global creative collective. It’s aware that many people (if not most) hate advertising, so the agency professes to “tell stories people want to hear for clients with something to say”. It talks of radical collaboration, the task being the only boss, and practices boutique craft at a global scale. It also reiterated and demonstrated its maxim, “We can’t do everything but we can do anything.”
Another example we visited is UK B2B specialist agency, Gravity Global, with 600 specialists across five continents, including an office in Durban. It’s the most awarded B2B agency in the world. This is important because it very deliberately targets business awards where its clients are and in categories of clients that it wants. It doesn’t target creative awards.
Its secret sauce? FAB — the attention engine:
Fame — what is your brand famous for?
Admiration — what is your brand admired for?
Belief — what value do buyers believe they are buying?
Client conflict isn’t an issue as clients want the B2B expertise and will therefore tolerate competitive brands being with the agency.
#2. Newcomers redefining the digital space
A prime example in this category, and a very refreshing agency, was Springbok x Dawn. It’s positioned as a leading brandtech agency for a sustainable future. It is purpose-led; the agency told us that consumer trust in the economy has never been lower in the Netherlands. The wealth gap in the Netherlands — much like everywhere else — is getting bigger and bigger, and brands need to play a bigger role in society. Springbok wants to reinvent marketing for 21st century brands and is “helping good brands grow big, as when big brands grow good, the world can change”.
The agency has several offices in Belgium and the Netherlands, and has partnered with South Africa’s Joe Public. It’s exciting to hear about this partnership. It showed us case studies for Eneco (green energy), Artis (Amsterdam Zoo), and Jumbo, and talked of its first client, Triodos Bank, a small niche bank which is still its client 10 years later.
#3. New networks building integrated offerings in multi-specialist collectives
iO is a new micro network, built by local campuses, with an integrated offering and offices in the Netherlands, Belgium and the Nordic countries. Started in Belgium in 2018, it now has 1 800 staff and €250m turnover. Its growth strategy is centred on building depth in every region, not on building scattered small teams around the globe.
It persuades clients “one test at a time” in order to prove that it’s capable of providing a full digital service end-to-end. Fifty percent of its clients started off on the tech side and then moved to marketing. The agency has been built through organic growth and through acquiring agencies and partners with suitable skills to complement the existing set. The M&A strategy is deliberate in that it only wants to find partners which will remain their agencies and not look for earnouts.
“Experience is everything” is iO’s mantra and it has four pillars of offerings to clients:
Grow the love for your brand
Shape or future-proof your business
Develop your digital ecosystem
Accelerate intelligent growth
The key ingredient is “grow a nose for the orchestration of digital skills”. The message is clear: If agencies want to really be end-to-end in delivery, they have to be accountable end-to-end. There’s no room to blame anyone else.
#4. Newcomers still capitalising on creativity as their core offering
Been There Done That is a fresh and disruptive new kid on the block, a blend of a holding company and Oliver-style talent pool that has offices in London and New York. It has 25 central people on board, all highly experienced thinkers who can work fast, and draws from a pool of 350 experts from all over the world in 34 markets.
It’s NOT a capability agency and doesn’t do any execution work; instead, it creates frameworks and has decoupled thinking from execution. It works in the area of strategy and has a tech platform which enables the 350 experts to connect and gain work. Some marketers who they work with keep them secret as these are strategic thinkers.
Key summit takeouts
Agencies that can’t provide at least half of the digital services that clients need currently will be out of business within the next two years.
Digital products and services, paid-media performance and end-to-end digital marketing can be delivered and must be fully accountable.
B2B marketing and communication has experienced significant growth in the past few years and is destined to continue on this trajectory. However, it’s a specialist area and needs suitable specialists to deliver.
Traditional creative agencies are reinventing themselves rapidly and creating new opportunities in the digital space, especially in paid media – “faking viral”.
Although the newer digital-native agencies are adding on new skills and capabilities in a highly entrepreneurial way, none of them aspires to be a “holding company”.
Out of global full-service agencies and digital multi-specialists comes the birth of the orchestrators, which are able to build ad hoc teams drawn from their own teams or wider independent partners.
You may also be interested in video clip insights from Johanna McDowell, CEO of the IAS