Thanks to my friend Tim at Pixel Bridge, I'm posting what Ad Age published yesterday regarding Accenture, IBM, and McKinsey reshuffling how Advertising dollars are distributed for corporate clients. "Management Consultants Push Further into Ad Business."
I placed a quick call to my friend Tom Rodenhauser, who has covered management consultants for decades. Tom told me he wrote a similar story about ten years ago with help from an Ad Age freelancer. He promised he'd send me something pithy today to post here, so stay tuned.
Here's Tom's quote (9:39 p.m EST): "The debate between ad agencies and management consultants is one-sided. Essentially, the agencies are pulling a Rodney Dangerfield (God rest his soul) by demanding respect for something they don't provide — strategy. The ad folks can be creative geniuses with positioning products. But have they ever helped the client determine whether that product should even be produced? Or where to build it? Or how to distribute it?
No, and the reason is fairly simple. Consultants make money by selling their brainpower; ad agencies make money by selling airtime. When a client plans to invest millions (or billions) into a new product or business line, they don't turn to the ad guys for a business case."
