Today’s successful agencies are channel-agnostic

Peter DeNunzio spent the last decade and a half of his career at a global ad firm known for progressive integrated marketing, bringing together direct and interactive marketing tools and merging them with public-relations efforts.

But “progressive” just took on a whole new meaning for DeNunzio. This fall, he joins the newly merged DraftFCB as president of its New York office. The company is shifting to a new model of integrated marketing that it calls “media neutral,” and DeNunzio is both a recent convert and a vocal advocate of integrated marketing communications.

It’s a transition era for many firms, according to DeNunzio, and those that aren’t developing new approaches in how they work with clients certainly ought to be.

“As mass media becomes increasingly fragmented and the channels available to marketers multiply, consumers assume greater command, control and choice than ever before,” DeNunzio says. “And advertising agencies have to adapt.”

Marketers might be tempted to view direct mail as the channel most threatened in this post-mass-media environment – perhaps simply because it is one of the oldest channels available to marketers.

But DeNunzio quickly puts to rest any notion that digital channels are outperforming direct mail. “One of the things that’s interesting about the pervasiveness of digital is that the Internet has enhanced the way people use mail,” he explains.

By way of example, he offers a few friendly statistics supporting mail’s vitality in the digital world: Consumers who receive a company’s catalog in the mail account for more than one-third of that company’s online purchases; when you order something online, it is delivered by mail; and 70 percent of consumers select physical mail as a medium of choice to receive unsolicited information about products and services.

DraftFCB’s answer to this new reality? Breaking down any barriers between marketing channels.

“What I think makes DraftFCB so exciting is that the approach this combined agency will take will not be driven by any one traditional solution,” DeNunzio says. Rather than treating client assignments as advertising or public relations or direct mail challenges – or some mix of all, as integrated marketers often do – DraftFCB will evaluate every client challenge without favoring any particular solution.

“What we’re trying to do is help our clients understand that when they work with us, they will work with an agency that has a perspective that doesn’t start with any discipline bias,” explains DeNunzio.

If it sounds a bit utopian, DeNunzio insists that it’s not. The trick, he believes, will be for DraftFCB to maintain its expertise across the spectrum of solutions. If they can avoid blurring the distinctions between the different disciplines within the company, including direct marketing, digital marketing and advertising, then they have the opportunity to recommend the most effective solutions for their clients across all disciplines.

The good news is that recruiting staff that can move fluidly across disciplines is easier today than ever.

“Communications professionals today are growing up with greater expertise in integrated marketing,” says DeNunzio. “There is an excitement for working in a multidisciplinary environment, and people entering the business no longer think in traditional ways.”