No. IBM will not “crush” Madison Avenue.

Adweek published an op-ed by Bill Wise earlier today entitled, “Will IBM Crush Madison Avenue?”.

The op-ed makes a very strong case for the coming of analytically driven marketing. We completely agree that results-based analysis should and will be a key-driver in decision making for advertising, marketing and product development. And the boon in analytics and automation will assist in making that a continuing reality. But we think the conclusion that IBM, and other IT companies, will ‘crush’ advertising agencies, is incorrect. Here’s why:

Advertising exists to sell products and services.

Applications exists to simplify, automate and improve the administration of tasks.

The two are different. It is perplexing that people continually state that marketing tools and analytics will eliminate the need for advertising professionals. Advertising is not simply about data. Advertising is about the ideas, emotions, needs and wants that drive a consumer’s purchase decisions. Tools, data and analytics will help advertising professionals make smarter decisions (and it will even assist in the decisioning), but the core foundation can not be replaced; businesses will still need to decide:

1. Who is their customer
2. What do you they to sell them
3. How do they want to sell it

Why would advertising professionals not continue to do that type of work with the added benefit of better tools and analytics from the likes of IBM and Adobe? Think of it this way:

Did Quickbooks ‘crush’ accountants? or did it make accountants more productive?

Did Salesforce.com ‘crush’ sales people? or did it make sales people more productive?

Did Microsoft Office ‘crush’ office workers? or did it make office works more productive?

In each case, the applications enhanced and improved the ability of professionals to do their job better. And honestly, our point of view is that this is what is happening — IBM is making applications for marketers. Adobe is making applications for marketers. Accenture is making applications for marketers. And ad agencies are going to be as likely to embrace these toolsets as anyone. In fact, they already are embracing them at increasing rates. The thousands of new agencies that have sprung up in the past ten years are the earliest of adopters and will continue to be so because they know it is good business, good service, and good marketing to do so.

[Hat tip to @citizencaen for starting this conversation last week]

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