Somewhere in a crowded cubicle, an art director and copywriter are facing a daunting challenge. Even after years of dipping into a full-service menu that ranges from designing business cards to coordinating a rock concert, this is a particularly difficult brief.
The Requirement: to reposition a large, multifaceted service sector.
The Marketing Problem: Lack of respect, and the lack of agreement on remuneration.
The Target Audience: decision makers in the business community.
The Client: themselves. The Budget: none.

The ad agency as we know it is in the process of reinventing itself. Not that the full service ad agency is passe. Not that the art shops and 'creative consultancies' are taking over. But there has been a rapid evolution. Many agencies, that once began as 'mom and pop' outfits have now grown into multinational strategic alliances, or strong independent brands, only to realize that there is life outside --and niches within-- the all-you-can-eat menu. The 'new, improved' agency has nothing to do with the upholstery in the lobby, or the framed achievements on the walls. Nor is today's ad world populated with hungry artists and fellas with pierced body parts. These are people with media and marketing backgrounds, musicians and writers, sculptors and architects. In a world that is relentlessly multi-sensory, fragmented and specialized, these are the captains of the communications revolution; you cannot have enough of these Creatives: The new breed of graphic designers will soon use a mouse rather than an air-brush.

Call them 'Professional Communicators', 'Relationship Marketers' or 'Interactive Media Consultants', they are no longer the men in dark gray suits. They are dapper and more versatile. And they would appreciate if you start thinking of them as professionals. You know, like your doctor, or lawyer, or accountant?Tough, isn't it? You see, unlike doctors or lawyers who work independently of hospitals and the courts, ad people by definition must work in triangulation: they exist as the intermediary between the Client and the Media, creating the sticky problem of being remunerated from both ends. Not resolving the commission issue is seen by some as one of the factors hobbling the industry. But that would not be an issue in the first place if the industry made the effort to define its value-added role that may the best argument why hiring an ad agency is not the same as hiring a realtor or a lawyer off the street. A fee based alternative --something that would drastically shift the agency's alliance from 'partner' to 'vendor' status-- is no alternative at all.

But much more is at stake. It demands that both clients and agency revisit the relationship it from another angle: not commission, but credibility. Not remuneration, but respect.

BIG HAIRY ISSUES
But credibility presupposes results --something that's expensive to quantify--unless you're willing to go by the trophies won. And respect? "There are two problems we are faced with", says Q&E's Creative Director, Chrishantha Jayasinghe: "Lack of respect for the advertising industry, and the lack of quality people". Many agencies are addressing the former by improving accountability. But the paucity of talent that's holding the advertising industry hostage for the past fifteen years, is a problem rooted in the country's education system. Successive governments never invested in the human capital that would drive the economy that opened up over twenty years ago. What is the advertising industry doing to lobby for introducing creative and media specializations into the curriculum? Unfortunately (except for a few agency heads who hit the lecture circuit) nothing. Not that they have much of a voice. The industry's representative body, the 4As, scuttled when disagreements split the membership years ago. The International Advertising Agency (IAA) stepped in to fill the void, but was more like a club, with no legislative or academic clout. Even with a former Ad man in the present government, there has been no serious move to address industry-wide interests, and even business issues such as 'pitching' (as prospecting for new business is called), preventing the media from undercutting the agency on price, and training. Unless these thorny issues are addressed, says Nimal Gunawardena, Managing Director of Bates Strategic Alliance, "and unless some consensus is achieved, the value and future of the grouping will be questionable". Translated: If we don't pull together, we can kiss goodbye to professionalism and respect.

When Mike Masilamani, Managing Director of Masters DDB, and longtime evangelist of training, talks of "upgrading professionalism to earn this respect", he means bringing the agency around to become a more specialized communications business, rather than simply becoming an assembly line or a client's dirty works department, occasionally producing cute ads. In a Darwinian sense, he sees the agency being forced by the media clutter to fall back on strong communication skills if it is to survive. (In the past few years two long-standing agencies, Zenith Advertising and Quest Advertising folded up). His contemporaries in competitive agencies agree. They too must deliver ("effective creativity" in Gunawardena's words) the goods. The once coveted 'stunning ad' is no longer the tool to earning a Client's respect. (This does not imply that the reverse is true: that bad, limp, embarrassing ads are OK). In its place, clients demand 'strategic advertising' that looks over the horizon. The multinational route is not necessarily the only answer, but international affiliations appear to be infusing new thinking, providing the agency with a better handle on how to deal with fragmented markets, limited attention spans in the media, and even new media. Says Grant McCann-Erickson CEO Neela Marrikar, "we are talking to a focused few, rather than to a faceless many". Translated: Advertising is no longer a form of mass communication. More than a posh name on the door, it has opened them up to "processes and tools", says Phoenix O&M Strategic Planner, Andrew Samuel. He ought to know. Phoenix, once touted as being 'fiercely local' because of its approach to advertising is about to hand over management to the Ogilvy & Mather partner, the first agency to do it since J. Walter Thompson gave up its Hindustan Thompson affiliation to become a full-blown JWT office. Grant McCann Erickson has set up what it calls 'communication corridors' that include event marketing, healthcare marketing and relationship marketing units to address communication needs that have nothing to do with advertising.

So how do ad agencies see the challenges of the next millennium? They broadly fit into in two zones.

THE MEDIA CHALLENGE
Most agencies see their role as hampered by media clutter. Ask Keith Wijesooriya, Media Director of Thompson Associated Limited (TAL), now a BBDO affiliate. Wijesooriya, the second generation ad man in an agency from the seventies, grew up in a time when Sat Mag and Honey were the only tabloids, and 'solus ads' (industry jargon for a front-page newspaper ad) were a hot media buy. When he furtively joined the business, "Media Planning was nothing more than working out the costing on a single A4 sheet of paper, and debating the percentage of spend between SLRC and ITN". Today, he, like Freddy Arumugam at McCann-Erickson, or Deepthi Senanayake at JWT must wade through research reports, juggle with TV rating points, and use tools such as SRL's CosNet, a real-time media tracking programme, before placing a media buy. It's not enough to ride on that gut feeling that was all it took to spend a client's money ten years ago. In the eighties, it was common practice for media presentations to lean on the sketchy media research (the first National Media Survey by Lanka Market Bureau was published in 1982, but not every agency could even afford it) and glib answers like "people in the outstations love it". This was particularly effective when selling a client on shows like 'Dynasty' that thanks to the novelty of TV and Crystal Carrington, had as much top-of-mind awareness as a house on fire.