Oct 13, 2006 6:06 AM, PROMO Xtra, By Betsy Spethmann

Promotion agencies are at a crossroads, faced with the choice of becoming either thought leaders for the marketing industry or "the tactical distribution arm of some other agency," said Momentum Worldwide CEO Chris Weil.

       Weil

Promo shops face increased competition from ad and digital agencies as well as media companies as they all chase marketing dollars migrating down the line from advertising, said Weil in his keynote address yesterday at PROMO Live.

"Your competition is the entire creative industry," Weil said. "We have to move from a primary output of cardboard to a primary business of ideas. We have to own the [marketing] idea—not the tactic, the idea."

Ironically, Weil sees promo professionals' experience in execution as their advantage over advertising agencies.

"We have always run complex programs," he said. " It's what we do as an industry. It's in our DNA to run them: We know how to take ideas across business channels and distribution channels, not just media channels."

But the promotion industry faces four obstacles to surpassing other shops at the client's table.

"Too often we run uninspired creative, and common execution," Weil said. "We have no strategic thought leadership as an industry. Our talent pool is inbred. We need measurement metrics beyond sales data for the promotional period.

"People talk about 'The Big Idea.' I say, let's just get to a clear idea, and then blow it out. Our industry too often confuses a tactic with an idea," he said.

Weil also offered one bit of advice to marketers on how to treat agencies, which he likened to Labrador retrievers who'll fetch a ball "over and over and over": "Don't just pitch us; embrace us. Let us be part of your brand and you'll get a better return on your investment. You can throw the ball higher and higher, and we'll perform."

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