Paul Duning, Capitol Communicator publisher, was interviewed on The Agile World podcast by host Greg Kihlstrom.  During the wide-ranging podcast, Duning was asked what he thought marketing agencies would look like in five years.  He responded that when the Capitol Communicator was launched about 15 years ago, “many companies in the industry were building a broad mix of expertise under one roof, plus a few of the traditional consulting firms were building agencies within their organizations.

“Also, having multiple fully-staffed offices for many agencies was very important. That trend has changed over the past 10 years especially since the financial crisis, but technology and the pandemic accelerated that change.

“In five years I believe that the majority of large marketing and communications agencies will be within professional services, consulting and mega-technology firms like Accenture and Google,” Duning said. “The remaining marketing communications firms will be small to mid-size with a majority of their staff working virtually and as contractors. Only the largest organizations will tend to have AOR retainer business and most other firms will do work on a project basis.

“In-house agencies will probably come and go due partly to the challenge of retaining top talent and their changing business.

“Office space will be designed for entry-level staff, not senior-level, as real estate and location become less important. Talent will be much more spread out and more business will be done virtually than was done pre-pandemic.”

You can hear the full podcast here.