This is a year in review NOT another 2020 predictions post

Like me, are you sick of 2020 predictions? I certainly am and so in the vain of my natural cynicism, I’m going to instead look at 2019 and what we learnt. If I could predict 2020, I wouldn’t be writing a post on LinkedIn, that’s for sure.

For me, the year really started in March. We opened our first US office and I emigrated over with my family to run the business here. I was (in equal measure) terrified and excited.  It was and still is a big challenge but one that I’m happy to say has been a success. We are up to 25 great people in San Francisco and still steadily growing. All in 9 short months.

However, this post isn’t all about us, it’s about what we’ve learnt and how we’re using that going into 2020. So, what have we learnt coming to the US?

1.      Being British here is not easy

Whilst we speak the same language there are so many differences that getting along can be quite difficult. Typical sayings in the UK are not common here in the US. In addition, as a marketing agency, thinking you can help US clients without deep experience of working in the country or its culture is foolhardy. In fact, as I’m writing this blog, I’m realizing that even this post is probably not American enough. There are cultural nuances and ways to write copy that resonate much better than us Brits can ever do.

I'd like to say that without my team I might have struggled to integrate, they have been amazing at helping me integrate and integral to our growth.

Outside of the working culture, the laws around HR, tax, banking and of course even driving are fundamentally very different. It’s been an interesting 9 months; it’s flown by and I’ve learnt so much.  Whilst 2020 will represent more hurdles, there are some very exciting times ahead.

2.      Clients are stretched

What I will say, is that the clients I’ve been lucky enough to work with are smart and the challenges they face are magnified compared to what I was used to in EMEA. One huge difference I see here is that the size and scale of the challenge in the US, and in some cases globally, means that a lot of our clients are specialists in disciplines e.g. social, content etc. So how do you help them create that connective tissue across the business?

I can only imagine how complex this is going to get as the number of channels and ways in which we engage prospects change. This constant ever evolving landscape means that marketers need as much help as they can get but, often in the areas they aren’t skilled in.

3.      The agency landscape is fragmented

Agencies here are very different to those in the UK. There seems to be much more of a focus on creative agencies, or advertising agencies as they are referred to here. This means that clients struggle to get one agency to help them in multiple areas as many don’t have the experience in the full process. Even the full-service agencies that exist don’t always extend their service offering to help support the sales side of the client and that’s a huge issue. It means clients are left searching for something that in my short time here, I haven’t seen a lot of.

I understand why clients refer to agencies here as vendors. It’s not the client’s fault. It’s the fault of the agency market in not responding to their needs, because what agencies have done here is mirror their client’s specialist (siloed) setup. In fact, often they are not helping their clients in a rounded manner, they are creating more pain.

4.      Integrated programs don’t always mean integrated programs

Whilst integrated programs are a part of our technology marketing language, in practice I’ve seen little evidence of this truly happening.  Again, to my earlier point, it’s not because they don’t want to, it’s because skills are usually built up in a specialism and to be a true integrated team you need to have expertise from soup to nuts (to coin an Americanism). Very few people can knit this intelligence together. Integrating both sales and marketing is where the industry should be heading and ABM (if done correctly) is a manifestation of this.

Final note

Whether it’s the weather or the people, San Francisco is truly a unique place to live and work. After having lived in London you assume that everywhere is as metropolitan and broad minded. I’m happy to say San Francisco is everything that I hoped it would be. I love living here and look forward to working with some amazing people into 2020.

Not one 2020 prediction, phew!