Death Of The Digital-Only Agency? Marketing Students Say It’s Coming In 10 Years

If you run a standalone digital agency or an agency that specializes in a specific vertical like social media, your days are numbered.

That’s the conclusion of a recent study of more than 2,000 European marketing students — in the UK, France, Spain and Belgium, to be more specific. The study, “Next Generation of Marcoms,” asked a variety of questions to students between 20 and 25 years old that are studying Advertising, Marketing Communications, Design, PR and Events.

(Note for those who may not know: “Marcoms” is short for marketing communications and is commonly used to describe a holistic marketing approach involving online and offline elements.)

More than 86 percent of the students agreed that social/digital agencies will no longer be standalone specialists 10 years from now; they’ll either be consumed by full-service agencies, or become one themselves.

Similarly, about 90 percent of the students said that the agency they’d be working for in 10 years would be full-service, where marketers would be comfortable creating strategies in advertising, direct, social, digital and public relations.

Anne Pflimlin, Managing Partner at MediaSchool Group (the survey organizer) says that, for student marketers, “questions of disciplines, silos and channels, which so often seem to dominate the marketing industry today — simply don’t exist. This generation is utterly agnostic about channel or medium.”

To a large degree, the study results reflect how today’s young marketers expect advertising to evolve into a discipline that’s based more on content and conversation, not sales pitches. Consider:

• 71 percent agreed or strongly agreed that “PR thinking” — where the creation of word-of-mouth and trust for brands is most important — would dominate the way agencies respond to briefs in 10 years
• 70 percent said that, in 10 years, advertising’s job would be mostly to entertain and not to sell

Rumors Of Facebook’s Demise Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

You’ve probably heard plenty of stories lately about youths leaving Facebook for Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and other social services. But recent Pew research indicates that Facebook is still the dominant social network for younger Americans.

This survey of young European marketing students agrees: 77 percent said Facebook is the best social media tool for reaching their generation, far ahead of Twitter and YouTube, which rated second and third, respectively.

There’s good news in the survey for Twitter, too: Almost 60 percent of the students disagreed with the statement “Twitter is not a medium for advertising to my generation.”

The study was conducted by MediaSchool Group, a European business school. The study is available as a free PDF that can currently be found in the lower left of their home page. It’s a French-language website; so, if you’re not fluent and prefer a direct link, here you go.

(tip via Ragan.com)