There’s a big shift happening in agency land at the moment.
WPP launches platform to ‘cut out the agency’ but sales are down.
WPP has just rolled out WPP Open Pro, a new AI-powered platform that lets brands create ads from scratch and launch them instantly.
It’s pitched as a game-changer for smaller clients who can create their own campaigns and cut out the agency.
But even with this kind of tech, WPP’s sales are still down with their stock falling to 16%. – its lowest level in 27 years.
Clients still need business partners
As Thomas Ruck shared recently, it’s clear that technology alone won’t fix the cracks for agencies.
The issue is there’s a need to get back to basics: building genuine relationships, solving client problems and creating commercial impact at every touchpoint.
Ruck’s says in his thought-provoking LinkedIn article:
“Agencies have over-invested in capabilities that are now being automated and missed the deeper strategic shift: that clients need business partners, not just marketing service providers.”
How do you stay relevant and indispensable as an account manager?
Clients want fast answers and proactive solutions but they’ll always value someone who can have real commercial conversations who is one step ahead with ideas, recommendations and an external perspective.
So if you show up as a commercially aware advisor who understands your client’s business goals, challenges, competitor landscape and customers then ultimately they see you understand their world and this creates trust.
AI is a great enabler to help us research the client’s business and industry – but it can also help you map your services to client outcomes which helps you have conversations and proactively suggest more relevant solutions.
Scenario
Let’s suppose you’re an account manager in an animation studio serving the pharma industry. You offer cutting-edge VR technology and beautiful animations but what matters to the client is achieving launch KPIs, securing funding, improving patient adherence etc. i.e. ‘outcomes’.
Example of service-focused thinking:
“We can create an amazing VR experience for you! VR is really innovative and will impress people at your booth.”
Example of outcome-focused thinking:
“You mentioned you’re six months from launch and need to engage thought leaders at the upcoming neurology conference. Your goal is to build disease awareness with 500+ key neurologists before you can start branded promotion. An immersive MR booth experience could give neurologists a memorable understanding of the disease mechanism, positioning your company as the scientific authority before the product launches. Is that the kind of outcome you’re looking for?”
If you’d like to leverage AI to help you have more commercial outcome-focussed client conversations, our next 12-week Account Accelerator™ starts 5th February and we’re already having conversations with agencies planning next year’s training budget.
If you’d like to talk to me about whether this might be a good time to up-skill in AI-enabled client retention and account growth, I’m booking no obligation exploratory calls now to see whether it might be a good fit. You can schedule a no-obligation call here.
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