Kevin Brennan, the UK marketing director (snacks) at Kellogg’s speaking at the Media 360 conference in Manchester today said that he wasn’t sure that consumers wanted FMCG firms in the social media space.

The Kellogg’s marketing chief was talking about the challenges that big firms like his face in the digital age and said they needed a lot of help from their agencies, but at the moment they simply weren’t getting it.

Brennan put it like this quoting Rory Sutherland: “Working with agencies it can feel sometimes like walking into a restaurant and meeting five different waiters with five different menus.”

He hinted there could be another ‘Mad Men’ like golden age for agencies if they could put the right services together for FMCG firms and guide them through digital age: “If we had the [ideal agency] I think they would make a lot of money.”

It was really refreshing to hear Brennan be so open about the challenges faced and about Kellogg’s not having the answers and how they didn’t “understand half the problems well enough that we have to deal with”. Digital and complex was something he said several times.

He said that the digital revolution “is probably as profound as the advent of television but way more complex” because of that mash of social networking, search, shopping, video on demand and websites.

FMCG firms have certainly lagged across the digital board. That seems to suggest they aren’t getting the right advice and are very nervous about trying new stuff. On social media I know there are brands who have done interesting stuff (Peperami always gets mentioned here), but Brennan said that when it came to social media he isn’t sure as to whether consumers want FMCG firms like Kellogg’s in that space. “We’re not even sure consumers want brands involved in those environments”.

He added that the issue of social media and FMCG was a question “we find very difficult to answer”. If FMCG firms can’t even answer that most basic of questions you know they certain are struggling when it comes sorting out a strategy and a way forward. To underscore that point. Brennan is on Twitter, but hasn’t tweeted since February 8.

That sounds like a great challenge for agencies, but going back to his earlier point about different waiters Kellogg’s simply don’t know who to turn to. Which agency is it who should be providing the advice – when clearly what is happening they are all vying to give it?

Not just are they all vying but they are knocking each other’s efforts. Just take what Justin Gibbons from “integrated insight agency” Work said just after Brennan when talking about lead agency status. He said PR agencies thinking they were lead agencies was “deluded at best”. No holding back there.

Gibbons is an ex-PHD media guy. His attitude to me seems to underscore the problems that clients face as agencies fight out to be ones providing clients with lead ideas in digital and social media particularly.

Pushing that point Brennan said a little later that right now he sees “a lot of disintegration”.

He also suggested that agencies (ad agencies?) had a lack of digital talent and that part of that was down to a lack of investment. “I know for agencies that’s difficult because that’s not necessarily where the money is. But agencies should invest.”