Unbundled media and creative is a "complete fuck-up" and needs to change, but the genie can't be put back in the bottle, Clemenger chairman Rob Morgan has argued. Top creatives won’t work in media, and vice versa.
Morgan was speaking at today's Media Sales Summit on the topic 'Back to the Future: The Return of Bundled Agencies' with Mediabrands boss Henry Tajer and Cummins&Partners founder Sean Cummins.
All naturally had differing opinions, but Morgan lamented the unbundling of media and creative as a "disaster". There are some fantastic media agencies, he added, but "they're not as funny and they don't get as pissed as they used to".
"Media agencies would argue they have the tools to make communication more efficient and cheaper, and many ad agencies don't give a stuff where their ads are running, but cheaper rates and better analytics aren't going to [deliver better results for clients]," Morgan said.
"Because if the work isn't effective the whole thing goes to custard. The days of doing ordinary creative, no matter how good your media plan is, it's not going to work any more. You can't just be filling holes in a robotic manner."
People might suggest it was easy, he said, that the solution was for media agencies to employ creatives and vice versa. Morgan disagreed. "You can't put the genie back in the bottle. Top creatives aren't going to want to go and work at the bottom floor of a media agency, and [vice versa]."
That meant you only got "second-raters" in a hybrid model, Morgan said. "So what are we going to do? I don't know. I would rather we go back to a bundled model but that's not going to happen. The whole thing is a complete fuck-up. We need a coalition of the willing."
For the flipside of the debate with Sean Cummins and Henry Tajer's views, stay tuned online and in print over the coming days.
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