Which Sales Weapon Is Best For Ad Agency Boss?

There is an adland mega-merger taking place. A $35bn marriage between Publicis and Omnicom.

On the ever-watchable Maggs on Media, the S African host this week posited an observation about the “explosion of data” along these lines to the local Omnicom bigwig, Derek Bouwer from TBWA.

90% of the world’s data we read has been gathered in the past two years for the sole purpose of selling goods and services.

Isn’t the future of advertising agencies not what you do now, but simply to become data managers and data experts. That’s where you’re heading, isn’t it?

The rebuttal was swift.

I fundamentally disagree with that.

Because I think that our business is still all about an incredible story, well told.

I think you can have as much data and as much analytics as you like, you still need to engage the customer.

I think if you can target them more accurately, absolutely, and I think that might give rise to efficiency of spend but I’m not sure that’s necessarily gonna give rise to customer delight and brand affinity and loyalty.

Leave aside that final veer into marketeergabble. There is a worthy message here.

I often push salespeople to fully bring out the numbers. You cannot rely solely on the feel good emotions of your buyer chums. Yet this mustn’t be at the expense of knowing the compelling story behind why they should buy.

“An incredible story, well told”. For all your fancied deals, how incredible is your story? And how well is it being told?