Gavin O’Malley, in his MediaPost column today, talks about Open Source in the marketing and advertising world. Those who know the provenance of Open Source trace it to the technology world where Open Source software is software available to all, with no intellectual property restrictions. Linux was an Open Source phenomenon years ago and it hurt Microsoft’s business. In the advertising world, it simply refers to a marketer and its agencies sharing intell.
Because agencies are competitive animals, they are always looking for advantage. A general ad agency doesn’t want to lose budget to the direct agency. The direct agency doesn’t want to lose budget to a digital agency. None of these want to lose money to a promotional agency….
Well, what if the marketer and agencies were able to aggregate their best learning, best research, best practices, and share it with one another? In other words, if all agency partners had access to the same code? Would this Open Source marketing world be more effective? Would the ideas be stronger? The process more streamlined?
Nah!
It’s up to the client to share what’s most important with its agencies. The marketer needs a tight product, a tight brief, and lots of consumer insights. Also, it needs proper budgeting and budget allocation to meet the objectives of the business.
Making all agencies play nice neuters them. Agencies that work well together, will. Otherwise, let them do their own thing. Who needs neutered agencies?
