Interview with Jan Holm Møller

		Back in 1975, when Jan Holm Møller started to work in the Marketing Communication industry, the PC did not exist, nor did the term “IT department”. Jan spent a total of 14 years at Ogilvy Mather, including 5 years as managing director of the Danish subsidiary of Ogilvy Direct (now called Ogilvy One). He was CEO of McCann-Erickson Denmark for 10 years before he joined Maconomy in 2001.

Jan recently retired from his position as VP Business Development at Maconomy. In this interview, he reflects on the changes he has seen in his industry and the critical challenges and opportunities facing Marketing Communication organisations.

Jan, you spent 26 years in the Marketing Communications industry, so by now you must know, what is it that makes a “winning” agency?
Creativity is still the core of an agency; clients will always demand creativity, but today it is not just about coming up with ideas, but also how to use new media successfully. Agencies have to combine new media with new ideas and the Web with event marketing.

This new level of creativity, it really requires holistic thinking and execution, not just a great idea on paper.

Agencies also need to provide strategic insight today to their clients but ultimately, they still win with creativity.

What are some of the key challenges agencies face today?
The Web is a definite challenge, and the general move towards digitalization. The Web is a new world and agencies need to adapt. For example, I see agencies that are trying to recruit young staff who have used the Web since they were teenagers.

Another challenge is that clients are increasingly asking for accountability and transparency – agencies have to show how they use the budget they are given. Clients want to achieve a measurable ROI. And agencies themselves are facing diminishing margins and therefore they need to optimise their operations to maintain their own ROI.

What are some of the significant changes you have seen occur in the industry over the years?
Well, when I started, there were no computers, so IT development is obviously a major change. An art director would draw an ad and order in copy lines, cut them out and paste them on the artwork. That piece of artwork was then delivered to a photographer who would photograph it and from the picture, create a printing template. Now, of course, this is all done on computers.

Proliferation of specialties is another change. When I started there were only ad agencies. Proliferation started due to outsourcing of media management to media management agencies. Media buying became a specialized trade with the expansion of television, film and radio. Then we saw the rise of direct marketing agencies, promotion marketing, graphical development and, in the 1990s, Web agencies started to appear. Now however you see more of these focus areas coming under one agency, and in recent years we have seen a lot of centralisation, with a few major holding companies, such as WPP and Publicis Group, owning many agencies.

As well, the real business growth is no longer in the U.S. and Western Europe. Enormous growth is occurring in Russia, India, China and South America, especially Brazil. This growth really goes hand-in-hand with the digital market. The Web market is enormously important – both the digital market and search engine marketing.

What kinds of changes and opportunities do you see for marketing communications agencies in the near future?
I think we will see a movement towards shared services centres for financial management – especially at larger networks, I think we will see a decentralization of certain functions and at the same time, individual expertise will emerge.

Agencies will have to become more operationally efficient and, for example, start using tools such as Lean*. It could be that the CFO will start to be more of a business advisor to the CEO. The industry could become more sophisticated and business-oriented.

But creativity will always be the driving force. New disciplines could appear – what will come after digitalization? Clients need agencies to be creative and therefore they will constantly have to move in new directions.

*Lean is a system pioneered by Toyota which almost any business or organisation can adapt for their particular set-up. Lean is a set of principles, practices and tools that ultimately create greater value for the customer by delivering a good or service with the minimum amount of waste and the maximum degree of quality.