Close-Up: Live issue - Do brand consultancies offer value?

Are ad agencies or brand consultancies best placed to drive a client's strategy? Noel Bussey reports.

Last week, Bartle Bogle Hegarty took the bold step of resigning the pounds 50 million global Sony Ericsson account because it didn't agree with the new brand strategy, devised by the brand consultancy Wolff Olins.

As well as causing agency heads to slather with anticipation at the prospect of a global pitch, the resignation has also served to bring to the fore some fervent views about what branding consultancies are paid for, and whose slice of the pie they are taking in the process.

The consensus among ad agencies is that brand consultancies are often superfluous and that most ideas they come up with are impossible to interpret as a campaign.

Laurence Green, the managing partner at Fallon, says: 'Sometimes it seems as if they delve into their big tub of brand values and pick them out at random. What we create is published and out there for all to see; they sit in a back office producing flip-charts.'

However, brand consultancies believe they are creating a broader strategic idea for the company; one that is capable of driving businesses forward. Agencies, they say, only think about singular campaigns.

One argument for the clear distrust between the two camps is that ad agencies are scared brand consultancies are encroaching on their revenue and threatening their relationships with their clients.