I believe AI will trigger the greatest redistribution of marketing services wealth in history. Larger than when Martin Sorrell took a coat hanger manufacturer public and built WPP. The China moment in manufacturing is the AI moment in marketing. We're all in on it.
I know this is an unpopular opinion. My peers are bracing for job cuts, retainer renegotiations and insanely escalating client demands but our clients showed us a way. One global software firm told us their North American HQ asked them to dump their agencies across five continents and do it all with AI. So we spent three months teaching them how to create all the work they needed: from briefs to reports to posts to videos, with AI tools and workflows. We think they'll come back, because we can use those tools better than they can.
The process revealed two things:
- A modern marketer's needs are now so complex that no typical agency or set of typical agencies can do everything at a cost clients can afford.
- If you redefine your agency beyond just 'Promotion' there's an enormous role to play in the other three Ps, product, pricing, placement.
That's what marketers need, that's what post-AI agencies should offer.
The last few months proved it
- A client happened to mention they urgently needed a study of 10,000 transactions across 100+ countries and this was a project no consulting firm would touch. We asked for a shot. Two days later, AI helped us deliver a deeply-researched report covering 30,000+ transactions across 140 countries, with zero hallucinations. They loved it.
- A large food company wanted to test new flavor acceptance across KSA and UAE. They told us their current vendors took too long and cost too much. AI helped us find the right respondents, deploy hundreds of surveys, analyze results and deliver a clear recommendation within 24 hours of the brief.
- A beauty brand asked if we could produce well-shot reels for their hair color offering quickly, at a fraction of the usual cost. AI helped us do it. It also helped us buy media for millions of views, track where attention dropped and rework the videos mid-stream to improve view-through. All within the same week.
We’re a 50-person firm and honestly, all of this took about three people's time, some of the time. I think one could do it.
Adapt or be replaced
In a world where agencies complain that AI is decimating their headcount, we're on the other end. It's bolstered our offerings, our importance to marketers, our revenues and turned our people from heroes into superheroes.
Lower costs and faster turnarounds aren't our main advantages: they're the door-breaker. The real gold is in tying ourselves to our clients’ P&L by offering services we couldn't have touched without 500 people: business research, global competitive tracking, app creation, video production and media buying across geographies. All to an integrated brand story, and all while doubling down on our mantra of being paid for performance.
Using AI is table stakes. Knowing how to use it well will help marketers sell more, by doing a lot more, while spending a lot less. Agencies who get it will, well, get it.
