Marketers' Aha moments reveal the pressure points in Agency-Client Relationships

Adtherapy runs a series of workshops with Marketers called "Creative Fitness."

It is a programme designed to help marketers to get the best out of their agencies, by understanding the process and the key components in getting from good to great advertising. 

We look at the briefing process. We interrogate how to generate insights. We look at what happens to a client brief once inside the agency (the creative brief). 

We talk about the creative 'tap' - how we want it to be open as that's when you get the best value for money - when the best creative brains want to work on your business. The 'creative tap' closes when there are too many reverts or when the feedback is too prescriptive and it becomes ' give them what they want so we can get it out of here'. That's not good use of your money. The hourly rate is the same whether the tap is open or closed! 

So we talk about building relationships and  learning how to evaluate ideas/executions in order to give feedback that is constructive and inspirational.

All good stuff, right? (You can read more about the programme here.) 

Having run a number of them this year, I thought it might be fun to reflect on the Aha! moments that come of the exercises we ask the delegates to do. These usually come out when we ask our Monday Question: so, what are you going to do differently on Monday?

(Source: www.garfield.com)

In no particular order, here are the most often uttered Aha!s:

1. I'm going to give my agency more time. 
2. I'm going to spend more time planning, and writing, my brief.
3. I'm going to keep my briefs shorter.
4. I'm going to look for the good in a creative presentation, not just look for what's wrong.
5. I'm going to 'market marketing' inside my organisation.
6. I'm going to look for deeper consumer insights.
7. I'm going to spend more time talking to consumers.
8. I'm going to make time to do the brand work that isn't clearly articulated at the moment.
9. I'm going to make my briefs inspiring.
10. I'm going to learn how to evaluate ads so I can have the language to give constructive feedback.
11. I'm going to set up what the brief was and who the target market is before I ask someone in the corridor whether they like the ad.
12. I'm going to collate feedback from everyone involved so we limit reverts.
13. I'm going to spend more time looking at great work so I understand what it looks like.
14. I'm going to be less prescriptive.
15. I'm going to build a stronger relationship with my agency. 

And there are more. Marketers realise how hard it is when confronted by a brief and a blank page. They realise how much harder it is when given too little information. They also have an aha! about how difficult it is to choose the best option when presented with a pile of ideas. That shows them the value of the Creative Director, the job he or she performs and the unique skill-set they have.
Image courtesy of adamr/FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

At the end of the programme, we find that there is a renewed sense of excitement about their ability to do great work. A renewed commitment to their role in providing the inputs to the agency that will lead to that great work. And a renewed promise to work with their agencies in a way that will no doubt prove invaluable to the most important person in the process: the consumer.

What these learnings also show me is the pressure points in this tricky space between logic and magic, between expectation and delivery, in an area that is super subjective. Maybe if marketers used these Aha's as a How To list, things could work a whole lot better?


For more information about the Creative Fitness Programme, or to find out more about Adtherapy's other training, mentoring and consulting programmes, visit www.adtherapy.co.za or better yet contact Gillian:  m: 0832659099 or email gillian@adtherapy.co.za

Creative Account Management: the real deal

Account Management is a difficult job and a much maligned role. It is the interface between the marketing client (the fulcrum of all of the client's own internal politics) and the ad agency's system that produces the creative work: traffic, creative teams, strategy, production, implementation.

They are also a human punch-bag.

The client gives them a tough time because they place them in very difficult situations, and expect them to do the impossible, often. Some are downright abusive.

Inside the agency, some of the people they work with think that Account Management are "useless". 

Does your dog bite? Image by cjenjasuwan.

"They just do what the client wants".

"They don't know good work".

"They're more like the client than this client is".

"They don't push back hard enough".

I attended an Eagles breakfast many years ago when the agency CD from Mother London spoke. "We don't have account management", he said to thunderous applause.

Here's how Mother London's Stephen Ledger-Lomas explained it recently: 

"We don't have any account managers. The client can call the designer the creative strategist, they can call the chef if they want. That means there's no hiding places - they are the ones that have to explain their ideas to the client directly. there's no pass the parcel".

Personally - I love that philosophy. Cut down on the layers. Keep it responsive and flexible and accountable. Get the key people close to the client's business. 

But funnily enough, many creatives that I speak to actually don't want to take on that role. They want someone to be the 'buffer'.

So, why the disconnect? Why don't they value this person who's taking the punches for he team?

Because great Account Managers are few.

The person who can be the ideal Account Manager is multi-faceted. They are organised, numerate, diplomatic, have good people skills, are problem solvers, can project manage, are persuasive, are manipulative (in that they have to sometimes get stuff out of people that is almost humanly impossible), are motivational, are good marketers, understand media in all its facets, understand production, understand marketing and consumer behaviour, are strategic, and are creative. They aren't left brained or right brained, they are 'whole brained'.

And that's rare.

Some things have happened to the Account Management role that have worsened their lot. Not just here - globally. 

Ticking boxes isn't everything. Image by Danilo Rizutti

I once asked a colleague from Lowe in London what he thought the problem with Account Management was. He said "People have to stop promoting secretaries". Look, some of my best friends were secretaries, and sometimes that was their only way into the ad business, and they have done well. But often, secretaries get promoted into Account Management because of their organizational skills. Project management. Getting things done. Great. Tick. We need that. 

But that's not all we need.

The vast right brained chunk of what makes a great Account Manager is missing. Enter Strategists.

The strategists became the ones to fill in the gaps between what the project-manager-account-manager could and couldn't do. And great strategists are worth their weight in beluga caviar. But Account Management should not completely outsource this role. As I always say: "strategy is not a person". (As in, "let's call strategy"). It's a way of thinking, and Account Management has to lead, to direct, and contribute to this process, based on their intimate knowledge of the client and the client's business, to which strategists are only exposed every now and then.

So the Account Management role became just a glorious, glorified master of ceremony, bringing in the 'experts' to present to clients, wrapping things up at the end of the meeting and managing the project flow and deliverables.

Because of this, they became detached from the creative work - the real product that they are part of producing. They don't "speak creative". They don't consume great work; they don't read or watch what the creatives are reading or watching. If more Account Managers attended events like the Eagles Breakfast, perhaps there wouldn't be such a divide. The creative output becomes something to meet a deadline or a budget.

Inspire and lead - not manage. Image by KromKrathog

Another part of the problem is in the name. Account Management. It's boring. It says you manage an account. But you don't. You grow it. You inspire it. You inspire those who work on it. You live and breathe the success of it. The term 'Client Service' is even worse, as it implies that you simply service the client, do their bidding. Some clients want, and even demand this.  But, they will never get the best work from their creative resource as a result. 


(Read my analogy of Michael Jackson and his Doctor here to see why a client-agency relationship in which there's no respect for each other's skill-sets is doomed).

Some agencies have experimented with other titles. 'Brand Leader'. 'Communications Director'. And of course the creative eco-system, from which the account manager is banished through their own lack of organic participation, calls them names like 'Client Serpents', 'Client Surplus" or 'Client Serviettes'.

And then, equally polarising, are the terms "Creative Department", and "Creatives". Which means, by inference that other people in the agency are not creative. Which is of course what they should be to work in this business.

Part of the Account Management job is project management, part is marketing, part is strategic, part is creative and part is business, making sure that while the client's business is growing, so is the agency's.

At the end of the day a great Account Manager should live and die by great creative. As Colwyn Elder, head of strategy for Y&R said to me the other day: "it's rugby, not relay". It's as much your work if you're the Account Manager as it is the creative team's. But because the emphasis is on project management, and on handing over the relay baton, so the silos develop and become entrenched. Work, or client relationships get defined in terms like "theirs" or "your".

"My Client doesn't like your work" - accman to creative. Or "Tell creative that there are some changes to their work" - accman to traffic.

 The separateness works both ways: 

"Your client wouldn't know a good idea if it leapt from behind a bush" - creative to accman.

It's not yours, or theirs, or mine. It's ours.

In a fascinating article, Why Conformists are Key to Successful Innovation  in the Harvard Business Review, it shows the impact - good and bad - of too many "conformists" on a team of creative individuals. They are indeed necessary (and helpful) for innovation to be implemented, but they can also be idea killers.

Conformists tend to be the people who know how to get along with others. They know how the system works and they adhere to the rules. They have an eye for which ideas will be accepted by others. 

As you build your team, be careful not to overdo it on detail people, who tend to be risk-averse and uncomfortable with ambiguity. They can squelch nascent ideas. You don’t want the detail people forming a bloc. 

You might get lucky and find creative people who are also conformists. Those people do exist. In our study of 468 people, we found that 7% scored high on two of the three cognitive styles. You might even find creative people who are conformists and detail-oriented. But don’t hold your breath: Just 3% of the people we studied scored high on all three styles. 

And don’t overlook the importance of the people who are “none of the above.” I believe that people who don’t score high on any of the three styles tend to be the ones who form bridges among the creatives, the conformists, and the detail-oriented people. They foster understanding among the different types.

What to do?

An account manager that 'gets it'.
Image by KromKrathog

Seek those rare creatures who are 'whole brained'. Choose Account Managers who are strategically smart and creative and give them project management support. Do this rather than employ project managers, give them strategic support and expect them to go to war for great work. Project managers are always going to be task driven. This is a vitally important skill in an organisation in which the output is time sensitive and money sensitive. But it's not the essence of Account Management. Pure project managers are never going to grow client relationships and contribute to the creative dynamism that inspires brilliance from agencies. Not because they don't want to, they just aren't wired that way.

Find yourself the real deal. The ones that do want to. The ones that consider Creative Account Manager to be the ultimate title.



Adtherapy runs Account Management Workshop and Mentorship programmes for agencies that focus on building leadership capacity in the three most essential areas: Strategic thinking, Creative and Business. Contact Gillian if you need more info on gillian@adtherapy.co.za

All images courtesy www.freedigitalimages.net

The difference between lip service and leadership

As always, the Bedford Group Consulting has some interesting views on the Agency/Client relationship subject, in an article I've just read, called "What Clients are saying".

This article echoes what I've been banging on about in my Strategic Account Management and Strategic Creative Leadership workshops.

From the article, in the context of increasing pressure on top management, Jane Bedford writes:

A downsized corporate America is looking for agencies whose informed objectivity can provide support and directional input in making decisions which affect the corporation’s very survival. These clients want an agency whose principals genuinely know the difference between lip service and leadership in the communications business.

And this raises an interesting point. How many ad agency principals remain active in their Client's businesses? I know that I found it difficult - the challenges of running an ad agency suck you further away from the very rockface you need to be climbing.

Jane goes on to another of my favourite subjects: how often are agencies simply executing what they've been briefed rather than actively looking for ways to grow their Clients' business? Through clever product innovation, or through deep consumer insight work to uncover amazing new territories for the Client to play in, functionally or emotionally?

And she makes the point that should be nailed to the front door of all agencies busy pitching their socks off: it's so much easier to build your business through building your clients' businesses than jumping through the pitch hoop, depleting your resources and under-delivering to your existing clients.

Bottom line? It's all about delivering business building value, by being experts in communication. But being (and staying) an expert takes time. I'm always amazed at how few people in the ad industry have ever even read the ASA Advertising Code, the basic Rules of the Game.

So there are a couple of challenges, tweaks needed to the current agency working model. But the best thing about all of this, is this:

What clients are wanting from agencies is theoretically what agencies love doing and, given the chance, can be immensely good at. Agencies always bemoan the fact that they have been pushed so far down the totem pole, and are superficially invoved in the business compared to the golden days, when the CEO sat across the table.

According to this article, Clients seem to be asking Agencies for more involvement in their business challenges. It's a great invitation!

Recent projects by Adtherapy

Adtherapy, a company which consults on all areas of advertising to both Marketers and Ad Agencies, has recently completed the following projects:

· Agency interventions: communications, relationship, and skills audit and in-depth assessment of weakness in Agency-Client relationship, with strategic recommendations focussed on improving the quality of creative output, for SABMiller on a number of brands;

· Rules of Engagement (a process to get a new relationship between agency/client off to a good start) for SABMiller and Exclusive Books;

· Creative Advertising for Marketers workshops(one one-day interactive workshop to enhance advertising skills to all levels of Marketers) to Ackermans, Exclusive Books, van Schaik and FNB;

· a Perceptual Study on Agency Brand Reputation (interviewing top marketers about a particular agency brand and the industry in general) for a Top 10 agency;

· Pitch guidance (working with ad agency to mentor strategy, creative and pitch presentation);

· Mediation (between Creative director and agency),

· Positioning strategy for a Design agency;

· Client/Agency Remuneration Negotiation.

· Lecturing: Gillian Rightford lectures Advertising and Brand Communication at the School of Management Science at the University of Cape Town. She lectures third year Business Science and a Post Graduate Diploma in Marketing. She also was appointed to develop and lecture a course to third year Stellenbosch Design Academy creative students that highlights the role of account management and strategy in agencies, and discusses how to build strong account management/creative/client partnerships for more creative, more effective, work.

· She recently did a talk to SAMRA members on Creative Advertising: Art or Science?

· Coaching and Mentoring: Gillian has conducted a number of Executive coaching and/or mentoring sessions. Gillian did a foundation Coaching course with Acclaim Human Capital, using the Co-Active Coaching method. Her Coaching philosophy is that life is not separate from work, and balance is all-important. Her coaching is aimed at Executives in the Communication Industry. Her coaching methodology works by combining coaching and mentoring – it focuses on the business challenges at hand, and works to build skills and understanding to help the candidate achieve his or her goals in a work space. The personal space is not ignored, and the approach looks to optimise both. The end goal must be balance: work and life satisfaction.