INTERVIEW: Mindshare's Nick Emery on how agencies must adapt to survive

Emery said agencies would need to be brave this year and overhaul their structure, bring in new talent and invest heavily in new technology if they are to stay ahead of the competition

There will be a ‘huge space race’ for social media in 2012 as agencies battle over how best to manage a brand’s community profile. Traditional agencies, Emery said, believe community management is about ‘story telling, Facebook and Timeline’ while media companies say it is about measuring the value of consumer interaction online.

“Both sides are right but they are both too isolated in what they do," he said. "The success will be in taking bits out of the two approaches and creating new ways of working with clients.”

Embracing and understanding technology must be a key focus for agencies this year, Emery said. Agencies will have to be brave as it will require ‘fundamental changes’ in the way agencies and clients work.  

“The thing I hate is when you hear people doing presentations about ‘data is the new oil’, and they are desperate to talk to you about theories but never the work," he said. "If data is important, what do you do about it? What do you invest in in terms of technology, how do you change your organisation and how do you create a structure around that to get an end product rather than a tokenistic person who turns up for a pitch.”

Meanwhile, Emery said the industry is operating in a ‘golden age’ with more opportunity for media agencies to create something than ever before.

“You don’t work in an agency to just do competitive reports and spreadsheets," he said. "You work in an agency because you want to create something, whether it’s a new form of trading, a big idea or product. There has never been a better opportunity to do that.”