Expanding the Ad Agencys Reach (OPINION)

The label “ad agency” is increasingly vague, as the industry multiplies, diversifies and specializes.

In Northwest Arkansas, the term encompasses on one end of the spectrum the hefty, traditional CJRW, largest in the state, and conversely the fresh concept Red 11 Collective in Fort Smith, which consolidates freelancers who specialize in ad services such as graphic and web design, image branding and video production.

And this month, we’ll see the opening of Smack, a new ad agency founded by Sean Womack, with his decades of marketing expertise, including as a former chief creative officer with Saatchi & Saatchi X of Springdale. Womack also earned a master’s degree at the University of Southern California’s film school, and said he’ll certainly draw upon the producing model from his entertainment days, when it’s useful.

Womack’s concept is to assemble a base team in Fayetteville (Nelson’s Crossing). As needed, he will beef up custom teams to execute larger projects.

Some of the best, most talented people are freelancing now, Womack told me; with Smack having a top executional team, the other designers, writers and web developers don’t necessarily have to be based here.

The agency will serve CPG brands and retailers, tech startups and authors. Smack will offer half- or one-day intensive labs under four themes: Idea, Value, Brand and Story, as a get-acquainted strategy.

I asked Womack to describe the model, and he likened it to “American Idol.” During the show’s 12-week span, singers are essentially created as products, he said. They’re introduced, measured, developed, tested, perfected and tested again.

Traditionally, young product companies have focused on scoring their first purchase orders but, in today’s market, one of the worst things to hear from a young company is an excited but premature proclamation such as, “I got into 1,000 Walmart stores,” Womack said.

“You need to put several variations of your product out there and see what works. If you’re a food company, go test them. Put them side by side on the same shelf, and see what happens,” he said. “The challenge is, how do you help a brand scale and build an audience before it gets to Walmart?”

This is surprisingly feasible today, he said, with the retailers’ yen for innovation.

Smack will incorporate a variety of mediums to tell a product story — written, visual, photography, design, video — and to distribute those stories.

Ad agencies have moved far beyond simply shaping a brand’s message and blasting that message via the same old channels. Increasingly, as with Smack, they’re guiding companies in the process of developing and fine tuning products and brands.

Ad agencies in this 21st Century can be correlated to traveling without a map, I recently read from Agathe Guerrier, strategy director of London’s BBH Labs.

Creative strategy during the 20th Century was about carefully planning narratives and detailing itineraries, she said. Then the digital revolution transformed consumer culture, economy and media, rendering “most previous knowledge of the terrain obsolete.”

Guerrier now suggests ditching the map, remaining both technical and instinctive, in order to keep a steady direction no matter what changes and moves.

“The 21st century strategy may not always know how it’s going to get there,” she says, “but it knows exactly where it’s trying to go.”

At Selling to the Masses, we have a new venture of our own to consolidate retail forces: a modern rendition of the yellow pages, available at supplier.community. It’s a data set of retailers, the companies who supply the products they sell, and the experts and service providers who support them both (such as ad agencies and the like).

This type of networking is largely happening organically now. People ask their colleagues for recommendations when they need packaging, design, consulting or manufacturing help. As with Womack’s venture, we notice freelancing is more popular than ever, and we recognize the need for a mechanism to bind and organize all the varied sectors of the retail industry.

What better region to initiate this than Northwest Arkansas? List your company for free. 

Robin Mero is content director for Bentonville-based Selling to the Masses, which serves as a destination for resources to help early-stage, consumer-product companies get and stay on the shelves of the country’s top retailers.