A voice in the boardroom  ( May '23,2007, The Hindustan Times, Mumbai)

P rof. John Philip Jones of Syracuse University wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review a few years ago titled "The Cinderella of Business". The Cinderella he was lamenting about is the advertising profession.

He pointed out how advertising and advertising agency heads were at one time seen as partners of CEOs and company owners. He opined that currently, at least in several developed countries, engagement with the agencies happens at a pretty low level of the marketing totem pole. The added concern is that these executives have the power to ‘reject' ideas presented by agencies while they have no real authority to ‘approve' one. This has led to a downward spiral in the quality of thinking both at the client's end and at the agency's end. Prof. Jones worked for a long time in advertising before turning to academia.

So why should CEOs or company boards listen to advertising agencies? The advertising agency model, as it evolved, became a powerful, ‘insideroutsider' voice in the client offices. The agency was supposed to focus on the client's brand and business. But by the sheer fact that the agency works on several other products and categories, the agency was expected to be at the cutting edge of changing trends. Often, clients called agency heads to get a quick update on the new thing.

The need to add value in boardrooms drove agencies to invest in tools and techniques that help perform their role of ‘insider-outsider' to perfection.

The client agency relationship was seen to be one of mutual trust and respect. This gave the relationship a lot of freedom. The agency did not have a Damocles sword hanging over their head, hence free and frank exchange of views in boardrooms were a common occurrence. With the agency at times refusing to create advertising for a product that was in its opinion a sure fire failure! Unfortunately, over the last decade, we have seen a slow death of this relationship of mutual respect and regard. The quarter-to-quarter financial reporting has put tremendous pressures on companies. Senior managers' time is more often spent with analysts and financial advisors, taking away the time that could have been spent with ad agencies and their business building ideas. As the engagement levels have dropped, agencies too seem to have admitted defeat and reconciled to the fact that they are at best suppliers of film scripts.

So what can be done to correct the situation, for mutual good? Agencies need to start investing in building relationships and understanding their client's business issues. And as an industry, agencies need to focus on how they can engage the ‘C' level executives in organisations.

In India, we are in a unique situation with several agencies run by top class professionals, from the best management schools, often with valuable marketing experience as well. Given a choice, most clients would love to get them to dis sect their strategies. Ad agencies are also a reservoir of very good consumer thinking.

But there is no organised move to make this happen and it is here that I believe that industry organizations like CII, ASSOCHAM and AAAI can play a meaningful role.

While the beaches of Goa, Pattaya and Cannes have their attractions, there is a need for advertising agencies to figure out how to get out of the beach and get into the boardrooms. Only then will the poor, abused Advertising Cinderalla be rescued from the clutches of her ugly stepsisters. This column takes the issues raised in our article, "Why is advertising losing value?" featured in Billboard on May 16, forward with suggested solutions.