Dramatic Shift in Marketing

German agency Scholz and Friends have made a really nice animation to bring to life how much marketing communications has changed.



This is very similar to a presentation i put together to try and highlight some of the problems currently in the industry in China. The industry here has developed so quickly and the challenges are so vast - geographic spread, thousands of media outlets, hugely diverse consumer groups, government regulation, lack of research and data... Over the last six or seven years, agency networks have enjoyed boom times and the biggest agencies now have dozens of clients and literally thousands of staff.
This pace of growth and change has meant that the focus for agency management has often had to be on simply managing the growth (ie. not messing up). It makes sense then that you tend to revert to what's known and familiar (and easy). The same goes for many marketing departments.
I sense though that the industry here is reaching a tipping point and the 2009 economy might just get us there a bit faster. More marketers seem to be realizing that the 'one-size-fits-all' approach actually only really fits one, and that it doesn't matter how cheap things are if they're the wrong things to invest in.
Hopefully more marketers and agencies will embrace change, building collaborative and constructive relationships with each other.