via Digiday by Brian Morrissey
Why do you think agencies sometimes struggle with innovation?
When you’re 50 people and in one space you can ship and iterate very quickly. When you’re at an agency, you’re typically larger. Clients and the big media companies are part of the ecosystem. It’s difficult because you can’t just innovate by yourself. You need clients and media partners. It has to happen together. No one can be too far ahead of the others. Everyone is driving a bit of innovation, but they make sure they’re not going too far in front of the client. Agencies aren’t going to lose their importance with marketers. CMOs still view the agencies as their go-to strategic partners. But they recognize they cannot rely on their agencies to be their portals to the startup space. A lot of them want direct relationships. That wasn’t the case a few years back.