IPA predicts agency models of the future

The report ‘The Future of Marketing and Agencies, The Next 10 Years for Consumer Engagement’, predicts the advertising industry will be based on four new agency models revolving around the need to manage the tension between consumer and brand control.

Following extensive consultation and participation with agency heads and chief marketing officers, the four models react to four future brand scenarios outlined by the IPA and Future Foundation.

The four models are:

• Provocateur – emphasising strategic consultancy and reinvention, to advise clients on continuous brand refreshment and sources of specialness
• Influence – emphasising talent spotting and nurturing super-creative consumers to tell the brand story for clients
• Incubate – creating spaces to help consumer creation with branded tools
• Sustain – emphasising the design and build of frictionless, total, transparent marketplaces for consumers who care.

Janet Hull, IPA director of marketing strategy, said: “As the digital economy goes mainstream, agencies need to rethink their product and service offer and commercial model with brands and businesses. This study aims to provide a helpful framework against which to create a new vision, and repurpose the business.”

Melanie Howard, chair of the Future Foundation, said: “We have designed this programme to equip agency strategists and planners with the tools and skills they need to run effective engagement workshops to review where existing client brands are headed and how the agency can partner more strategically with them in future.”