OK … OK … so dear ol’ George Parker is bound to have slagged this off already given he is on a one-man mission to bring the ‘agency of the future’ to its knees, but I just saw this and couldn’t resist.
As you know, I have a bit of a problem when agencies/clients try and act cool or proprietary by basically just renaming an everyday tool/product/service with a large injection of their corporate ego.
Hell, I might hate McCann’s “DEMAND STRATEGY” but at least it doesn’t have the word ‘McCann’s’’ in it and I have a decent idea of what it’s all about without having to read up about it … which is a damn sight better than TBWA/VISA’s alleged “Goifesto” but that’s something I’ve already ranted about.
[Saying that, Naked win the all time bullshit process award – the Wizards Sleeve – but to be fair, they were deliberately taking the piss when they created that]
So without further ado, I would like to bring to all your attention Enfatico’s ‘Enfatylitics’.
Yes, despite sounding suspiciously like some swollen testicle disease, Enfatico are claiming this is the power behind their brand.
“A billion-dollar agency based on a 99-cent idea? To better allocate scarce marketing dollars, we’ve developed EnfatyliticsTM – our proprietary cross-channel analytics engine.
Think of it as X-ray vision to see inside customer behaviors and the forces driving performance. Enfatylitics combines technology and insight to enable strategic, media and creative decisions in real time as the market changes.
It also enables predictive modeling that helps drive smart decisions about where and how to invest.”
OK …
So apart from the fact the ‘billion dollar agency’ is now worth about $5.47 with the recession and job cuts that have been going on over there, I’d like to look at some of the other claims they’re making.
1/“See inside customer behaviors and the forces driving performance”
Errrrm, isn’t that insight? Something that has been adopted, embraced and invested in for years?
2/ “Enfatylitics combines technology and insight”
So they’re saying previous to this, insight was developed by Gypsy Rosie Lee are they? While some of the bullshit justification I’ve heard for campaigns recently would back up that view, I still know there’s a lot of campaigns that are developed and crafted using multiple methodologies … including technology.
3/“Enable strategic, media and creative decisions in real time as the market changes”
Well given all they’ve done for DELL is print, television and digital communication, I would say either their model needs some work or the entire media industry might as well pack up and go home.
4/“Enables predictive modeling that helps drive smart decisions about where and how to invest”
See 3 … and if it was that good, why aren’t Enfatico selling this info to all and sundry rather than sitting in their increasingly empty offices, servicing their increasingly unhappy despondent single client?
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Technology has changed the rules … people can see/learn and experience brands without ever having to directly interact with them and if you continually pedal this shit without having any undeniable proof to back it up, you’re going to end up as much as a joke as the people behind ENFATICO are.
It’s probably not all their fault – as in many cases, they may have a client who said they wanted change but did their level best to keep things as they were, despite the fact it wasn’t working – but if that’s the case, then I don’t think Enfatico should of launched with all their big talk, though with the way this economy is affecting adland, maybe their impending demise truly is demonstrating what the future of agencies is like.
🙂