In advertising there are those who design assets and those who plan the deployment thereof. The first group of folks work for creative agency. The second work for strategic – also known as planning – agencies. When it comes to medical marketing the strategic agencies are in trouble.
Recently, I was on a call with a senior member of one of the three largest healthcare agencies. On this call the agency person said that across the board “the 10 largest vendors receive 90% of spend allocation.” This means that in terms of content, on average, every client’s program is 90% the same. A simple find and replace activity in Microsoft Office could recreate the bulk of a brand’s strategy.
From a profit point-of-view, this may seem like a mighty win for strategic agencies. Less effort per plan means less chances of budget overruns. However, when every plan looks oddly familiar, then pharmaceutical companies are more likely to question where the ‘strategic’ aspect of ‘strategic planning’ is.
To stand out – and prove their strategic mettle – planning agencies need to personalize plans for brands. To do so, they can’t just keep going back to the same well of 10 vendors. Why? Because any other agency could do the same for potentially less money. Perhaps more frightening should be the prospect of clients moving planning internally if external agencies fail to display their price-to-value justification.
Personalization means including bespoke programs generation and the utilization of vendors outside the ten-deep gang of the usual suspects. The easiest way for strategic agencies to generate value is to think differently, act differently, and most importantly, plan differently.
Evan Johnson
Chief Operating Officer, Watzan