We saw ads from Audi, Dodge, Hyundai, Honda and others.  Usually the Super Bowl is a proving ground for card ads.  Manufacturers bring their best of the best to the table so they can outshine the competition.  This year’s Super Bowl was just strange.  Hyundai was ok…nothing Earth shattering.  Honda and Audi were abysmal.  Doge was suprisingly strong.  But, to me the best ad from a car manufacturer was from Kia.  If you have kids, you have to love this spot.  Now, let’s see if it moved the needle.

Do we need a bit of a reality check?

I was in a client meeting a few days ago where we collaborating on their 2010 social strategy. The social strategy ultimately is tied to the overall marketing strategy and thus the well defined business objectives. As we were plotting out a fairly robust and comprehensive plan, our client paused and asked a great question, “We don’t know if what we have behind the door is a drip or a flood; how will we scale to meet their real time expectations?”

Think about that question. It’s profound really. When we mailed in comments to companies we might have accepted a 30 day turn around for feedback. When we email customer support, it’s reasonable to expect anywhere from 24 to 48 hours for a response. When we call the 1-800 number, we’ll tolerate 15 minutes to hours (depending on call volume and your need) to connect with a real person.

But, in the social space (twitter, Facebook, etc.) we demand, not expect, INSTANT feedback. So, again, I ask, do we need a bit of a reality check? I even find myself expecting immediate feedback when I tweet a company, comment on a post, or make a request via a forum/message board. Is that right?

Let’s consider a few things:

1. Customer service is important and consumers expect great customer service
2. Providing great customer service is expensive – technology while an enabler, still requires REAL humans to deliver on that great customer service experience
3. Customers want value…and by value I mean they don’t want to spend a lot
4. Quality customer service is derived from both what is said/done and how quickly service is provided

There seems to be a gap here, no? Let’s assume you’re a company that offers a service. If you have 10 customers and 1 customer service person, you’re probably ok. But, if you have 1,000 customers and still that 1 customer service person, you’re going to be stretched. Ok, so what happens if you have 1,000,000 customers and still only 1 customer service person? Well, you aren’t going to be able to provide great customer service. Hmmm…ok, so we’ll just hire 99,999 more customer service people to bring us back to our ratio of 1 customer service person per 10 customers. Cool, but we’ve got to pay these people. For the purposes of round numbers let’s assume each person costs the company $100,000 in salary, benefits, and operations. Well we just went from $100,000 of customer service overhead costs to $9,999,900,000. That’s a big jump, no?

Is the company going to eat those costs? Of course not. They’re going to pass those costs on to you. If amortized equally, each customer will now be paying at a minimum $9,999.90 more. Guess what’s going to happen? Yeap, we’re going to have some pretty ticked off customers.

Look, that’s an extreme situation, but the round numbers show us that customers like you and me need to be willing to do 1 of 2 things:

1. Pay more for better service
2. Have more realistic and lower expectations

Surely, there’s a middle ground. Companies like Zappos, Comcast, Southwest and others are showing us the way. But, you can’t simply copy someone else’s model. If you’re a company you need to find your own model; one that works for your culture and customers. And as companies are developing these models what are we to do as customers? Should we change our expectations? I think we should. If we don’t, companies will be reluctant to enter the social space. After all it’s easier to keep us using older and more familiar tools for customer service, like email, letters and the phone.

There’s a reason Apple isn’t in the social space. Part of it is arrogance. But, the other part is they don’t have a model for how to make it work. Think I’m wrong? Consider the Genius Bar. Have you ever tried to walk up and get help at a Genius Bar? If you’re like the majority of Apple customers, it’s a rare occasion when they’ll simply help you on the spot. A more likely situation is the Apple employee will ask you to schedule an appointment at the Genius Bar. Granted, that appointment could be for a time 15 minutes in the future. The point is, they schedule, slot and meter your ability to get customer service. And, while they’re doing that, they’re also getting major kudos for offering amazing customer service. Not too shabby, huh? Imagine if Apple was on twitter and using the platform for customer service…an extension of the Genius Bar, if you will. Do you really think customers would accept an exchange like this:

Customer: “Hey, having a problem with 15″ MacBook Pro. The screen keeps shutting off randomly. Any thoughts? Thanks.”

Apple: “Thanks for your tweet, unfortunately all of today’s, tomorrow’s, and the rest of the week’s slots are filled up. I can tweet you back in about next Thursday. Thanks.”

No customer would dare accept that. After all, if you have time to tweet me that, you should have time help me out. If Apple, instead ignored the customer’s tweet until next Thursday, the customer would still be irritated because of the time lag in getting a response. See, it’s the expectations of the medium. Almost feels like a no win situation.

So, what do we do?

You know what I love about fantasy sports? I get to play the role of general manager and customize a team to my liking. I’m an Atlanta Braves baseball fan. And as much as I love my Braves, the reality is at the beginning of the year, I’m stuck with the team they’ve put together. But, when I’m playing fantasy baseball I get to choose the combination of players I want…the ones I think are best for my team philosophy…the ones who will help me be a champion at the end of the season.

Essentially, what I get to do is create a custom team. Custom is a beautiful thing. It’s the kind of thing that people are willing to pay more for. Whether it’s clothes, cars, jewelry, kitchens, houses, shoes, etc.; people pay more for custom.

But, think about the traditional client-agency model. It’s not custom at all. Client X choose agency Y. Agency Y now puts together a “custom” team to work on that client’s business. There’s only one problem. This custom team is being put together from a small pool of talent. It’s a small pool of talent because a good portion of the agency’s talent is already assigned to other clients. Most of the A level talent is stretched too thin or pre-allocated to a specific existing client. So when the agency wins a new piece of business they ultimately combine internal talent (limited pool) with external new talent (also a limited pool) to create a “custom” team.

Hmm…that doesn’t seem very custom does it? Enfatico, was an attempt to create a custom agency offering to support one client: Dell. It was created at the request of Dell, not at the request of WPP leadership. It failed. It failed miserably. It didn’t fail because of lack of effort. No, it failed because Martin Sorrell “drafted” the wrong people to put on his team. It failed because Enfatico, was owned by WPP and therefore had to leverage the WPP network for talent, operations, logistics, etc. Essentially, they shrunk the draft pool and after shrinking the draft pool they drafted horribly.

Despite Enfatico’s failure, I think they were on to something. I think they were on to what the future of agencies will look like. Dell was bold in asking for a custom agency to support their business. They saw that the traditional agency model was not going to drive them to success. But, they made a mistake in using an agency holding company as the general manager/contractor.

You’d think with Enfatico’s rapid demise, I’d be supporting the status quo. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. See, I think clients are going to learn from the mistakes Enfatico made, but leverage the strengths of the concept. Let me break it down:

1. You’re a client. You want the best of the best working on your business. You’ve finally realized that the old way of shopping for an agency just isn’t working.
2. You also realize that it’s time to stop nickel and dime-ing your agency partners…and if you’re willing to pay more than you have in the past, you also want something better than what you’ve gotten in the past.
3. That means, you’re ready to pay for custom. So instead of hiring a consultant to lead an agency review, you hire a consultant that acts more like a general manager/contractor. Their role is to assemble the best collection of talent against a defined set of roles. In short, they are responsible for recommending the draft choices. Ultimately, the client gets the final say on who gets “drafted.”
4. Now, because you’re willing to pay for top talent, the entire market is open. The draft pool is equal to the size of those people in the industry or simply interested. Everyone, is an option.
5. So, you might score person X from Ogilvy to be your lead account person, person Y from Edelman to head up PR, people form W+K, Crispin, BBH, etc. for your creative team, and the list goes on and on. Literally, imagine a situation where you the entire universe is your talent pool, you can draft a team of high quality talent, sign them to contracts (ensures continuity), and then let them run wild on your business.

That’s the future of the client-agency relationship folks. There’s no doubt about it. Of course, future, is a loose term. It might not happen in 2010 or 2011, but make no mistake, it’s coming. Agencies that start snatching up talent, regardless of existing need, will be the ones who make it. Look how smart Edelman was to lure David Armano away from Dachis and then pair him with Steve Rubel. You could literally argue that Edelman has positioned itself as the de facto leader in interactive strategy, social business and consumer insights.

This isn’t a crazy concept.  For years this is how broadcast production has been done.  Agencies came up with the idea and then worked with the best producer, director, editing house, etc. to come up with the best execution.  In the last few years we’ve seen the same thing happen with interactive/digital production.  Perhaps my favorite example of this was when BBDO rode Big Spaceship to a Cannes Lion…and then of course didn’t credit them for any of the work.

If there’s one thing that’s always on every agency’s business plan every year, it’s the need to improve the talent. Unfortunately, not many agencies are willing to commit the time and dollars to do it…and to be honest, why should they, when clients historically have refused to pay more for that added talent.

I’ve got a feeling that’s all going to change. CMOs, VPs of Marketing, agency executives, and the like; stop reading AdAge and stop doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results.  Instead, start learning how to play fantasy baseball and pick up a copy of Moneyball. The future of your business just might depend on it.

Do you know what the problem with advertising is? Do you know why most people don’t trust what’s said in ads?  It’s quite simple really, most companies stretch the truth so far that really what they’re doing is telling a lie. Companies like AT&T spend millions of dollars trying to convince the public that their “network” is as good, if not better than Verizon’s. One of the benefits they tout is the consumer’s ability to multi-task on their phone. For example you can talk on the phone and surf the web at the same time.

I’ll let the ad do the real talking:

Technically, what AT&T is saying is true. I say technically, because so long as you are on the AT&T 3G network you can multitask. Of course the problem is that AT&T’s 3G coverage is horrendous. This isn’t a debatable question. The map doesn’t lie:

My belief is that it’s cheaper to simply be the company you want to be instead of paying millions of dollars to try and convince the public that you’re something you really aren’t. Think about it this way. Instead of dumping 10s of millions of dollars into advertising why not put that money into making the network better…into increasing coverage…into ACTUALLY SOLVING THE PROBLEM.

In the movie, Lord Of The Rings, there’s a very poignant scene when Gandalf tells Eragon “become who you were born to be.” Amen! To paraphrase, companies, become the company you should be instead of trying to convince the public you’re something that you aren’t. Trust me on this one…it’ll be cheaper in the long run.