TRENDSETTERS: Total Media's Head of International, Tom Laranjo, ponders--"What do Clients Want?"

Tom Laranjo, the London-based Managing Director of Total Media International, admits that he agrees with Intel's Chairman Andy Grove in believing that "only the paranoid survive." In order to insure growth or implement critical changes, Laranjo is convinced that a company must take risks. Perhaps this sense of healthy business paranoia is also what motivated him to face the reality of "What do Clients Want?"

Total Media recently surveyed 220 marketers in the UK about the kind of services a media agency should provide. This may seem like a straightforward inquiry. However, in a new digital era when media has affected classic notions of marketing and when there is a blurring of services and solutions offered by various types of specialist agencies, answers can reveal a few surprises.

According to the survey, clients still expect media planning and buying to be the #1 requirement of a media agency (fortunately). Yet, most marketers also require a laundry list of other services from their media specialist. This varies by client and category, but such services may now include digital creative, social media management, bespoke research, as well as service level agreements that insure the measured delivery of predetermined values.

Tom Laranjo reads a new sense of optimism in the survey's results. He says, "Clients may want more, but they are willing to give us more. They will pay for additional services if we can speak to them in the right business language and provide the right tools." When surveyed about which services they wanted to keep in-house, the results proved that a majority of clients were willing to partner a host of marketing needs with their agency--even CRM solutions.

Particularly interesting were the results to the question: "What is most important to keeping a media agency?" Business Understanding out-ranked Insightful Media Planning. There is real substance to Laranjo's recognition that "speaking the same business language" is now critical to a solid partnership. In fact, this has caused Total Media to form an alliance with the London School of Business to insure that its staff is up-to-speed with the latest business thinking.

Or as Tom Laranjo aptly says, "If media agencies want a seat at the client's board meeting, they will be invited if their skills and perceptions reflect the company's business needs. We have to add genuine value and express it in a way that resonates with our client’s larger interests."

In his role as Managing Director of Total Media International, Tom Laranjo works across a wide variety of clients and sectors from semi-conductors to hotel chains. He was also named an Agency Innovator by The Internationalist in 2009.