Want to survive? You'll have to put some skin in the game.(Column)

Advertising Age, March, 2008 by Bloom, Jonah

Byline: Jonah Bloom

Agencies have long fantasized about owning their intellectual property. Instead of simply handing over a potentially business-changing idea to a marketer, shops imagine that they might own and continue to profit from it.

The problem has always been that agencies' only skin in the game is the time and human resources they put into creating marketing programs, which are typically considered to be covered by the cost-plus type fee paid by the marketer. In other words, any IP created is just part of the shop's expected service.

But if you listen to Irwin Gotlieb, CEO of WPP's Group M and a man acknowledged by many as being one of the cleverest people in the business today, owning IP is no longer just gold at the end of the...

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