The Agency Impact of Elections

In partnership with

In This Week's Edition:

• An Intriguing LinkedIn Question

• Macro vs Micro

  • But Tim, People Slow Down Spending During Uncertai …

• Agency/Advertising News

• From The Blatant Self Promotion Department

• Thanks to Our Sponsor - PodPitch

An Intriguing LinkedIn Question

This morning, I got a question on LinkedIn that I was SURE to lead to the dreaded pitchslap, but it turned into a lovely conversation.

NOTE: I have lots of thoughts about the election. To be clear, the election is not turning out the way that I drew it up…so now you know my bias, but what follows isn’t really political.

The short answer to the LinkedIn query is this:

1. The strength of the economy rarely has much to do with whomever is sitting behind The Resolute Desk. The global and national economic conditions are rarely the result of governmental policy. The best a governmental policy can do it make an economic downturn a tiny bit less bad. The worst a governmental policy can do is crash the economy - but there are a lot of stopgaps in place to make sure that isn’t possible.

2. The “Trump Economy” that was so aggrandized by many had very little to do with Trump. His current ideas about massive tax cuts and huge tariffs seem to be an economist’s nightmare, so I don’t think that his policies will be implemented in the form he described. That said, I don’t know if there is going to be some “short term pain” as Elon Musk said recently…but read on….

3. When we talk about “the economy” and downturns and upswings - we are talking about the MACRO economy. All but the largest agency holding companies only operate in a MICRO economic sphere.

Macro vs Micro

Unless you are S4 Capital (see news below) or another agency holding company like WPP or Omnicom, who work with clients in every market globally, your economic “surface area” is pretty small. You have exposure to say 10 - 100 clients. So the economic exposure to large global forces is quite small.

Your clients and prospects might be feeling the pinch of an economic squeeze, but if they are in your world and they are talking to you, they have a need. If their business isn’t growing efficiently, they have a need.

The economy you have to worry about is as big as your next sales call or your next client meeting. The global or national economy has very little impact on the fortunes of one client or prospect.

We’ve all had prospects say to us, “I’m nervous about what going to happen in the economy” and they use that as a reason to not move forward. (As a matter of fact, that happened to me just this week…) But that isn’t a real reason to not move forward. It is an excuse to justify their decision to not engage with you. If their business was in such a perilous spot as to have macro-economic fluctuation be determinative of their future, they weren’t qualified to be a client anyway.

But Tim, People Slow Down Spending During Uncertain Times…

Yup. They sure do.

But the operative word here is slow…not stop, not cease. Prospects may be spending less when they aren’t sure of what lies ahead, but they still need to generate business. What happens during uncertain time is that the bar for value is raised, meaning that as service provider, you can’t just rely on that great case study or crazy result set that you refer to in every sales pitch.

Uncertainty breeds uncertainty, so you have to get really certain about your value. You may not be able to generate the same results you did at some time in the past, so you’ve got to spend MORE TIME doing discovery and analysis BEFORE YOU MAKE OFFERS so that the value is crystal clear - and the old “economic uncertainty” doesn’t get in the way of a great agency/client collaboration.

Agency/Advertising News

• The Tale of Two Holding Companies: S4 Capital had just a MISERABLE Q3. Revenue down by 13.5% YoY and advertising agency LEGEND Sir Martin Sorrell, the chairman, said “S4 was cutting its cost base to meet demand”. (That means they are going to lay people off.)
  
  Compare that mess to the joyful LinkedIn post by Mark Penn of Stagwell. They had a crazy good quarter - 15% revenue growth and almost 100% revenue growth in MENA (Middle East & North Africa).
  
  These are both MAMMOTH companies with a lot of agencies in their stable. Why did they have such different results? Leadership? No - those two guys are legendary. Better/worse offers? No - large enterprise deals don’t hinge on a free audit. S4 said that its tech sector business cratered. Stagwell says everything is grand. I guess that proves my point above - it’s not the macro economy that determines your results, but rather how well you show your value in the micro-economy of each individual client and prospect.

• MacDonalds Leans Into Dupe HARD: Sometimes brands and their agencies are freakin’ brilliant and hilarious. MickeyD’s launched their new Chicken Big Mac at a fake high-end restaurant called McDonnell’s. Very creative!

From The Blatant Self Promotion Department

ONLY 1 SPOT LEFT

Thanks to Our Sponsor - PodPitch

Get Your Team Booked on 3.8 Million Podcasts Automatically

It's 2025. Want to finally be a regular podcast guest in your industry? PodPitch will make it happen. Even the beehiiv team uses it!

The best way to advertise isn't Meta or Google – it's appearing on podcasts your customers love.

PodPitch.com automates thousands of weekly emails for you, pitching your team as ideal guests.

Big brands like Feastables use PodPitch.com instead of expensive PR agencies.

Get your FREE personalized demo!

Our sponsorships are ads (obviously). But some of the companies or services linked in our content may pay us a minimal commission if you buy something from them. Potential payment is never a factor in what we link to, and we have direct experience with every company or service we mention in our content.