Some time back I wrote a blog based on a report called "A is for Alliances", published by the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising), in the UK. (Images below are from the report. Download it here) In it, they provide real justification for the age old saying that Clients get the agencies they deserve.
Aprais, a renowned Business Relationship Management Consultancy, reckons that there is as much as a 37% differential in the quality of creative output between poor and good client-agency relationships.
Unless you've been under a rock you know already that better creative is a better business building tool - more effective, more efficient, better ROI. (If you're still unconvinced, please read The Case for Creativity. Again, if need be). So adding the Apprais research and The Case for Creativity findings together, we get a simple equation:
Good relationship = good work = better results.
Scientifically proven, even! My mantra when I started Adtherapy ten years ago was similar:
How I got to this piece of intuitive brilliance? By working back from the great campaigns I'd been involved with, and realising there was always a strong client-agency partnership behind them. And when I unpacked what was at the root of those partnerships, it was obvious. Skills. Other things too - chemistry, culture compatibility, bravery, fun. But skills meant that each party respected each other and had confidence in each other. That 'trust' thing. One of my clients told me that she would jump off a mountain, that our Executive Creative Director was like her parachute; that was the extent to which she trusted him (and us). The work we did for her got her death threats and nearly got her fired, but catapulted their business into the stratosphere, so she knew what 'brave' meant.
What drives successful Client-Agency partnerships?
The IPA has come up with 4 basic drivers of good partnerships. They are:
Transparent and effective approval processes
Mutually agreed and maintained timing plans
Honest and open briefings with clear business objectives, budget, timing and brand guidelines
Respectful and collaborative behaviours built on shared goals and rewards.
So simple. And yet, and yet, and yet...
Many briefs are terrible. Lacking in information, too long, no clear thinking, prescriptive, pedantic, clumsy, no insight.
Many times the business objectives and the brand objectives are muddled and are not clear.
Consumer understanding is limited and basic or super surface-level.
These horrible briefs are often emailed; not even presented in person.
Agency sometimes questions the briefs, but this creates a disharmony - "why are they being so argumentative"?
Deadlines bear no resemblance to reality - they are imposed from the outside in, because of an internal deadline.
Then the work that comes back is used as a guide to what the client team doesn't want, doesn't like.
There are few evaluation skills, few skills that help in giving constructive feedback. B.t.w. - "it makes me want to vomit" is not a good one.
Approvals become about second guessing the bigger boss, and then the next bigger boss, because many of the corporate marketing teams operate in a culture of fear and 'what would s/he like'?
And would you believe it, because of all of this to-ing and fro-ing, deadlines are missed.
And the agency is "useless".
Many of these marketers and agencies willingly submit to relationship audits, every month, twice a year, whatever, to 'measure the relationship'. Issues are raised, concerns are flagged. Until the next audit, when the same issues are raised and concerns are flagged.
What to do? *wrings her hands*
Back to Adtherapy maths formula. Better skills = better relationships = better results.
What to do? Put the skills in place to make it work. Then, get some Partnership Principles in place. And move forward happily - or don't. You may both be wrong for each other. Acknowledge it and move on instead of perpetuating an unsuccessful relationship.
What are Partnership Principles?
The work done in the IPA exercise highlighted the concept of a Relationship Contract. Agencies and clients have lengthy legal contracts (which are often not signed because they spend so much time bouncing between lawyers) and detailed fee agreements but no real contract on how to work together. An example from Avis and DDB from the 1960's shows us how it's done.
To get you started, you could consider the advice given by Gotz Ulmer,Executive Creative Director at Germany's best agency, Jung von Matt. He said they have three simple rules for working with clients. They ask: 1. Are we making money? 2. Are we doing great work? 3. Are we having fun? If they can't answer 'Yes' to at least 2, then it's not the right agency-client partnership for them.
Then make sure you and your client have the right skills.
What are these magical skills, I hear you cry? Interestingly, I believe the same set of skills is required by both parties at the coalface - namely the agency account manager/strategist team, and the brand/marketing manager. They are the fulcrum of the relationship and need to manage up, manage resources, manage conflict and manage the risk. Some of the skills are 'hard', some are 'soft'. This is not a complete list, but here are some:
Soft: Giving constructive feedback, being inspiring, managing conflict in a positive way, selling up the organisation, effective communication, body language, building teams, presenting well.
Honestly, if you are managing clients , or are managing an agency relationship without being super skilled in these areas, you are wasting other people's time and money. The whole point of having an agency is that they are able to bring to the business a degree of commercial creativity that will drive your business forward. A little like the man with the ladder in this picture:
Work together well, and both your businesses will thrive. Work together badly, and both your businesses will suffer. Or at least not do as well as they could. And you will get the advertising, and the agency, you deserve. _________________________________________________________________
Adtherapy is premised on helping agencies and marketers work better together to develop better quality creative output, because it is better for business. We have numerous training options from Creative Fitness for marketers to Account Leadership for agencies, to a fully fledged suite of modules for up-skilling marketing teams in our new Business Marketing Academy. And we consult too!
Every year I adapt a post I've written over the years asking what makes a brief for a Super Bowl ad different from the briefs we usually write, everyday briefs? Here are my thoughts in a 2017 world. If writing creative briefs is hard then writing great creative briefs is extremely difficult. The main problems are a lack of clarity of thought and an inspiring proposition. These arise because sometimes the brief-writer isn't clear why they're really asking for this piece of communication, or what they really want to say, or who they really want to say it to. But, most of all they don't know why anyone should believe them. So they write briefs that offer their creative teams, and their consumers', too many choices. Then they use the creative offering to whittle down to what they think they should say. "Actually, that wasn't really what I had in mind... What I think we really should be saying, maybe, is ....." Of course it's not always that bad. Some creative briefs are perfect. But every year, the Super Bowl ad-fest inspires me to ask this question:
How does a Super Bowl Ad Brief differ from the Common Client Ad Brief?
And, with so many eyes on these ads, why is that some just don't hit the mark, some are bad, and some are amazing? In 2013, when I first wrote an article on this question, I picked up a quote from a Bloomberg's Business Week article entitled : "Game on: SuperBowl ads are already playing online". It was from David Lubars, chairman and chief creative officer of BBDO North America, who "advises keeping an ad simple and honest. “It should also be an easy, reductionist message,” says Lubars. “You’re getting a canvas that 120 million people will see. You have to go where nobody has gone before. The ad has to be single-minded, relevant, funny, and emotional. If it’s done right, $4 million* (for a 30 - sec spot) is a bargain. I would say 90 percent of the people running ads are wasting their money.” (* now $5million)
So back to my question. Is the brief for BIG work different from your common and garden version?
Or is the work different because maybe the agencies recognise that this is THE brief and assign their best teams to work on it? But even that doesn't always deliver great work. Even if the Super Bowl Ad brief is perceived by the agencies to be much cooler and high-stakes with more chance of creative risk-taking than the average Client Brief, then why do some of the Super Bowl ads come out boring, done-before, irrelevant and imminently forgettable? It seems that the enormous viewership might have something to do with it. Possibly a bit of stage fright and a trying-too-hard aspect? Or a client wanting to cover all their bases to justify the enormous spend? My two cents worth would be that there's too much playing to the masses and too much losing sight of the one person that actually counts - the person who may do something, buy something, think something, as a result of your ad.
Is there a different approach to writing the brief for communication that will be watched, and analysed, and talked about, by millions?
The usual Client Ad Brief claims to want to be original, single minded, relevant and emotionally engaging, right? So what's the big difference? Truthfully, having never seen a Super Bowl brief, I have no idea.
Here are some ads that I thought were interesting.
A few ads I thought hit the mark are Budweiser Immigrant ad (totally coincidentally spot-on from a political consciousness point of view), the 84 Lumber ad (ditto, very topical and bound to polarize both ways, they also gained huge traction from being "censored"), the Kia ad with the inimitable tree-hugging Melissa McCarthy and the Hyundai live shoot ad living up to its promise of making things better, and showcasing tech in all its storytelling magic. I also loved It's a 10 Hair care, for being hilariously political while strongly selling their brand benefit.
All these are fresh, single-minded, and totally relevant. They all hit an emotional chord. One is funny, one is deeply chilling, one makes you want to cry and one makes you laugh. They speak to the truth of their brand message. And all of them address, in totally different ways, an interesting insight. The Kia ad for me tapped into an interesting insight: being an eco-warrior is hard, but you can still do your bit by driving a Kia Nitro: the target consumer cal still do her bit to save the planet without going full eco-warrior. These ads have managed to create an ongoing dialogue, online, offline, in people's hearts and minds, about what their message. And the interesting shift this year, coincidentally or not, is the political nature of the messages. There was an apparent rejection of the right wing shift in American values and the need for big brands to continue to honor diversity. This ad for Airbnb is case in point - based on a really strong insight and business challenge. I would have guessed that the message was aimed as much as consumers as Airbnb hosts.
I'm not sure it achieved that, although CEO Brian Chesky tweeted additional information. There were many more, and many more opinions. Watch them all here Whether the ads were a hit or a miss, here's what I like to imagine sets a Super Bowl brief apart form a common Creative Brief:
The client (and agency) are aiming for GREAT. You have a much better chance of getting there if you aim for it, than if you don't.
It's presumably agreed upfront that the ad has to be entertaining with exceptional production values (with budget allowed for) - great advice for the Common Brief to borrow from.
The ad aims to be memorable, relevant and engaging. Tick, tick and tick.
It simply has to be distinctive. And talk-able, and shareable. And that means some brave decisions need to be made in the approvals process.
The message has to be totally singleminded.
Time has been invested in mining a really strong insight about the consumers motivations or beliefs in the category.
The brand has a strong point of view, which may or may not please everybody.
A powerful proposition and very clear brand positioning are the cornerstones.
Maybe we should treat each ad brief like a Super Bowl brief and see what happens to the work?
As you know, there
is much pressure to cut costs, everywhere, all the time. One of the areas
consistently in the spotlight is the communications budget. Just how much are
you paying your ad agency, digital agency, media agency, PR agency, media
buying agency, social media agency, internal comms agency, shopper marketing
agency, direct marketing agency...? And come to think of it - DO YOU NEED all
those agencies? That's a lot of duplication right there. That's also a lot of
meetings, confusion, lack of integration for your harried and harassed
marketing team to deal with. Right?
Right.
So integration
makes sense. Somehow you'll find a way (or ask your Lead Agency) to build a core team of big thinkers and
surround them with excellent implementation specialists and get the agencies to
build a simple yet complex workflow process that gives you the best talent you need, across disciplines, in one team. Not only will you cut down on
duplication, you'll save money, you'll cut down on the time creative takes to get out, and everyone will be
happy. Right?
Wrong.
Because what's
actually eating up your agency fee and killing your creative product stone dead
(along with a few of the creative talents working on your business) is your own
processes.
Integration is the
only way forward in order for marketers to make sense of every increasing
channels and agency specializations.
But there is no
point getting your agencies to integrate if your own business isn't.
Here are some
thoughts to ponder (and with each one, please imagine the
sound of money going down the drain):
Your
junior marketing team is most likely briefing the agency on work that has
not yet been agreed between your various silos.
The integrated agency team will start work, and sometimes do considerable work, and
present to your junior team many many times before
the presentation moves up to a more senior layer, at which point
someone (possibly from one of those silos) will say: "why are we doing this?"
That
might require a debrief or a
re-brief and so the cycle will continue. This
time there is possibly a more aligned brief. This is good, although time
and energy and money have been wasted.
After
the agency has got through this stage, the work will be presented to the
CMO, or the CFO, or the CEO, at which point someone might say: "I
don't like it", or "why are we doing this?" And thus the
agencies go back to the beginning.
Or the
C-Suite are dabblers. Or everyone in the team is a dabbler. And they
dabble with a bit of this, and move that to the right, and upweight this
and can’t-we-also-mention that. An agency I was with recently was on revert 56 for a print ad. How different
was it from revert 55, or 54, or even revert 21? Had it been materially
improved? Would the consumer notice or care? What was the cost of that dabbling?
And worse than the
fact that your team has literally flushed gajillions down the drain through this process,
that's not the only cost.
The cost is the “creative
tap closing".
At a certain point creative teams, generally optimistic and
determined to help you, will simply say the worst words imaginable if you're
paying.
"Just. Give. Them. What. They. Want".
Those are expensive
words. Because you are paying for talent and then forcing them to give you
mediocrity. Which they will, eventually, just to get your job out the system.
This does not make
them happy and it should not make you happy either. You may ask why agencies
don't try and change your system to make it work better. Truth is they try, but
often end up being bullied by the junior marketing teams to curry favour with
their bosses. Once in a process workshop, a brand manager
admitted to briefing an agency to develop a promotion off a creative big idea
that had been bombed. What? Yes, that poor promo agency worked for a month on
work that could not possibly ever be approved. Why? Because the brand manager
had a meeting scheduled with his boss in a month and needed something to
present. Do I need to play you the sound effect again?
What to do? *wrings
hands*
Get
your stakeholders to agree briefs and communication needs from a
business point of view, before the agencies are briefed;
Give
fewer but better briefs;
Give senior
input early in the process;
Approve
the big ideas early, before the agency has developed the full campaign;
And -
and I love this - institute a Wastage Report. Anyone in your Marketing
Team that goes over a maximum of 4 reverts has to sign off the
responsibility for it. They have to answer whether it was really
really necessary to move the logo to the left and change the type to blue?
These reports must be evaluated at the end of each quarter/6-months/year. It's dead easy to see who's costing the company money, time and good work. If
someone is repeatedly going over 4 reverts, then they are either not
briefing well, or the approval process is flawed, or they are a frustrated
creative director. All costly habits.
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:
I'm going to give my agency more time.
I'm going to spend more time planning, and writing, my brief.
I'm going to keep my briefs shorter.
I'm going to look for the good in a creative presentation, not just look for what's wrong.
I'm going to 'market marketing' inside my organisation.
I'm going to look for deeper consumer insights.
I'm going to spend more time talking to consumers.
I'm going to make time to do the brand work that isn't clearly articulated at the moment.
I'm going to make my briefs inspiring.
I'm going to learn how to evaluate ads so I can have the language to give constructive feedback.
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.
I'm going to collate feedback from everyone involved so we limit reverts.
I'm going to spend more time looking at great work so I understand what it looks like.
I'm going to be less prescriptive.
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
It's 2015 and already the year is galloping by. The relationship with your ad agency or client that might have started wearing thin towards the end of last year, may now be basking in the ever fading glow of the summer holiday. But as the tan fades, and you both start feeling crushed by the relentless torrent of work, so too may the renewed desire to play nicely. It might just be time to do a Client-Agency intervention.
Image courtesy of holohololand at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
An Adtherapy Client-Agency Relationship Intervention is a positive and constructive process that aims to review and learn from the challenges that are getting in the way of doing great work. And to then ensure the right processes and partnership principles are applied for each party.
The ultimate aim? A successful business partnership that produces great creative work for the brand.
The relationship between a Marketer (Client) and an Agency is often compared to a marriage. Although procurement people have tried to muscle in on the dating and wedding processes, the truth is that the relationship is between the people in the bed together, so to speak. This relationship has its ups and downs, and the primary reason for the “marriage” analogy is that it veers from moments of great joy to the depths of despair; from compromise to utterly unreasonable; is prone to emotional and subjective responses, blame and above all, is always high risk.
There are a number of companies offering tools (e.g. Y-Care, RAM) to help ad agencies and their marketing clients assess the status of their professional relationship. These are usually survey based and can be done on an ongoing basis, a few times a year or even just once a year as an annual assessment.
The assessments are usually mutual – agency scores marketing team and marketing team scores agency. The assessments flag areas of high and low performance and hopefully shed some light on those areas that one or both parties need to continue, or need to improve, if the relationship is to be the best it can be.
The assessments will highlight key success areas, and urgent issues that need to be addressed. Unless the agency and the marketing team take immediate steps to address these issues, the relationship is heading for the rocks. A friend I once worked with was married to a divorce attorney. He said this:
“once a divorce file is opened, it’s never closed”.
Once doubt settles in, frustration builds, trust falls and the divorce file is metaphorically opened.
So, it's a no-brainer that both marketing and agency teams would assign the highest priority to getting the problem areas sorted, right? Although it sounds simple, sometimes these areas are not improved, or even addressed. You may well wonder why this happens, when improving these areas has such important ramifications for both businesses and such dire consequences if not done?
Who knows, but I’ll hazard a few guesses:
Because it falls into Steven Covey’s Important but Not Urgent box? No-one will be harping on this on a daily basis and so it slips through the cracks while the urgency and noise of the day job takes priority?
Because addressing the issues might rock the boat and the agency thinks it might destabilize the relationship and they might lose the business?
Because the parties don't know how to fix the problems?
Because one party expects the other party to change completely while they change nothing?
Because no. 4 is allowed to happen because of no 2?
Because one or both parties don’t take the measurements seriously, or thinks its all the other party's fault anyway?
That's why Adtherapy starting offering Agency-Client Interventions, running successfully since 2007. The current relationship's appraisal 'score', and the key issues that have been identified, are only the starting point.
A client once asked what the ‘success rate’ was in Agency-Client Interventions. Interesting question. In all those that I have done, I have only recommended one partnership to split, as the relationship had deteriorated beyond what I felt was salvageable. Was that a failure? I think not – maintaining a destructive client-agency relationship is toxic for all parties and especially destructive for the end creative product. That agency and that client went on to find new partners with whom they have done great work.
The reason why Client-Agency Interventions are like marriage counseling is that they examine whether it’s possible to improve the relationship to save it, and how.
Just so you know, the IPA recently concluded that four drivers of successful agency-client relationships are:
Transparent and effective approval processes
Mutually agreed and maintained timing plans.
Honest and open briefings with clear business objectives, budget, timing and brand guidelines.
Respectful and collaborative behaviours built on shared goals and rewards.
The most important thing is this: like the divorce lawyer’s sad observation, the sooner this counseling takes place the better for the eventual outcome of the partnership.
My advice? Don’t wait till it blows up.
Deal with it urgently. Get stuck in. You can do it yourself, or you can let us help. We can add a qualitative and interpretive (and totally objective) layer to what you already know but might not think you can do anything about. Let’s scope some Partnership Principles and deal with any process or people issues. Let’s be proactive rather than defensive.
An Adtherapy Client-Agency Relationship Intervention is a positive and constructive process that aims to learn from the relationship challenges and ensure that the right partnership principles are applied for each party.
The ultimate aim? A successful business partnership that produces the best work. A recent client described the process as 'part agony aunt, part freedom fighter'. We like that.
I read Wallop recently, the recollections of Bob Rightford, Brian Searle-Tripp and Roger Makin about the ad agency they built: Rightford Searle-Tripp Makin (RSTM). The agency became Ogilvy Mather-RSTM and is now simply called Ogilvy.
Disclaimer - Bob Rightford is my father in law.
In my 25+ years in the ad business, I didn't ever work for the company, either during Bob's tenure or after his retirement. I did however work for a few of their competitors. So reading the book was like peering in through a window. It was fascinating to look inside, from the outside.
What is also fascinating is to use the book as a then and now comparison.
No-one can deny they not only made great creative ads, they also helped their clients build strong brands and strong businesses. If you go to the Golden Oldies page of the website, it truly is a chronicle of the foundations of some of our biggest and most loved brands.
What? Creative ads that also built business? I cringe when I hear marketers expressing surprise or cynicism in that notion. Firstly, a creative ad is only great if it achieves the objectives set out in the brief. And secondly, there is more than enough evidence (see the research in The Case for Creativity) that creative ads have a far better chance of achieving better commercial results. So it should be a no-brainer for businesses to want the best creative from their agencies. And for agencies to constantly strive to provide groundbreaking ideas.
And yet, at the nub of so many agency-client relationship issues is this notion of the agency not "adding value", not bringing "thought leadership" nor "business building ideas" to their clients. Many marketers feel that their agencies simply don't understand their business and aren't business focused enough. Bear in mind that CEO's of businesses even feel their CMO's aren't business focused enough! (see this Fournaise research). So the disconnect from CEO to CMO to agency, and ultimately to the creative output and the agency-client relationship, is massive.
What Wallop shows us is that RSTM managed to connect rather than be disconnected. They formed deep relationships with their clients, many of which persist to this day, long after Bob, Brian and Roger retired. They built a company culture, one which the current Ogilvy team respects and builds upon. They attracted great people. They did great work. The work they did created foundations for brands that grew from strength to strength. And because of all that, and a few other things they got right, their agency grew from strength to strength.
So how did they achieve this holy grail?
I took some lessons out of the book - looking at what they did then, in the light of some of the challenges the industry faces now. Sure, the industry is different and remuneration models are tougher and client structures are harder to crack and people are busier and labour law is more stringent and.... There are loads of reasons why it could be said that it is much harder to succeed in advertising now than it was then. And yet. And yet... There are agencies that are succeeding. And I would hazard a guess that the lessons I gleaned, listed below, will be old hat to them. Different era, same principles.
Here are the lessons, in no particular order, I digested from the book. I think they're important for the industry of today - both marketing side and agency side.
1. Strong connection with the CEO and Marketing Director
The relationship between Bob Rightford and the CEO's of their client's companies, as well as the Marketing Directors, was strong, close and even bordered on brutal honesty. There was no kowtowing and second guessing. The depth of these relationships allowed for difficult conversations, allowed for respect to grow, and allowed for the right work to be produced.
Over the years an insidious culture has crept into the industry that CEO's are too important for marketing issues, and particularly advertising issues. Agency MD's and CEO's bemoan they have lost their seat at the Top Table. So, the relationship has been pushed further down and it lands somewhere at Marketing Manager-Account Director level. This is fine on a functional, timeline, project management basis, but it certainly won't build the kind of business successes that a strong relationship further up, or right at the top, will.
Another odd notion amongst agency account management or MD's that their job is "to keep the client happy", to not rock the boat, in case they lose the business. The irony is if they continue with that approach, they will lose the business anyway.
An agency is not there to keep the client happy. The agency is there to do great work which helps the client company achieve their marketing objectives. Sometimes, because of the subjective nature of creativity and innovation, that requires some boat rocking. And Wallop tells plenty of stories in that regard. All with happy endings.
2. Absolute loyalty to client's products.
Bob Rightford retired in 1995. Twenty years later, to this day, he remains fiercely loyal to his former clients' brands. And this brand loyalty was expected from everyone at RSTM.
Of course, not only is this polite, but it turns agency staff into consumers. The insights gleaned, the selling cycle, the product highs and lows are experienced by the people working on the business. It also takes you further into the clients value chain, into the real understanding of issues that might affect the consumer. You will seldom get this in a brief. The example in the book about VW's dealers and the campaigns they developed to help them as businesses too, is a great example, particularly as the agency had to fight hard to get it made.
3. A deep understanding of the client's business, on every level and in every channel. No lines.
This follows on from the point above. But it was more than that. A slavish devotion to understanding every aspect of the client, from factory visits to store visits, competitive analyses (actual, on foot, not just Google), speaking to other channels in the selling cycle, like Dealers in the example above.
This built the ability to develop powerful insights. It allows the agency to access insights into the purchase behaviour of consumers that clients may be too close to, to see. Great campaigns usually have a cracker insight at their core. Also out of insight comes proactivity. Insights inspire new product concepts, new angles to address problems, new distribution options. And here's the thing - far from losing the business by forcing your clients to confront unpleasant truths, you not only help build their business, but also build the agency's business. In effect the VW Dealers became a new client, with additional revenue opportunities for the agency.
Too many agencies rely on their clients to give them insights. Too many marketers rely on their "Insights department" to give them insights, which is often just information. Too many of us are using the internet, or big data or third party research to tell us what people are doing. If you as an agency member are actively using, buying, driving, drinking your client's product every day, and making sure you watch others who do too, you'll be certain to stumble across an insight or two, way quicker than from behind your desk.
This deep understanding of the business your client is in, is also so critical in today's multi-channel communications era. No longer is it simply above- or below- the line. Now we have a million more silos. Digital. Social. Experiential. Activation. Shopper. Retail. Online, offline. Third screen. Fourth Screen. And you know what - the consumer doesn't see it that way. There is no line. Only a consumer wanting, or not, to buy something.
4. Proactivity is not a cute tactical ad. It builds value for the client company. Business value.
The best example of this in the book, and there are many, was the creation by the agency of the Citi Golf concept. Like the VW Dealership campaign, the agency fought for this, based on a real understanding of the market and a nose for opportunity. Asking "What if?" Not only did it build immense value for the client over many years, it again built a new revenue and creative opportunity for the agency. Oh, and created a brand that South Africans adored. Watch how consumers said an emotional goodbye when eventually VW discontinued the Citi Golf, in the link below.
5. They looked after their most important assets - their people.
Bob says they liked to say that their most important assets went down the elevators and out the front door at night. Wallop tells the story of a company that looked after their people. Were they relentless? Yes. Were they demanding and did they fire people? Sure. But it seems they did a few things right.
One, they created a culture where mavericks wanted to work. They attracted them and then they hired them when no-one else would. Agencies are not "corporates" and despite the best efforts of global holding companies and accountants in trying to turn them into corporately behaved businesses, they can't be, shouldn't be and won't ever be.
More than this they looked after their people - one example was when they fired a big big big Client because the junior marketing person was slowly sucking the life out of the creative department refers. Your people are your assets. And if they're depressed, your asset loses its immense value.
In my Adtherapy work, I see people in agencies dying in the trenches without management support. I see Account Management being mowed down by rude and disrespectful (and unskilled) clients; I see Creatives with hunched shoulders, working till 3am night after night and being expected to be creative the next day. This cannot be. The success of any agency lies in keeping your talented people inspired and motivated (and employed by you not your competitor). Sometimes this means you have to go to war for them.
RSTM helped their people grow too. They invested in training. They ran successful workshop programmes which not only allowed people to bond and create friendships but also to hone their skills. Sadly in many agencies this is an expense that has been cut. Talk about not doing the cost-benefit analysis properly. Better skills make better business.
Another aspect of looking after their people was building a culture in which every person felt they played a part. An open attitude to where ideas come from. A shared interest in the campaign being sold and working well. Too many agencies use polarising language that put people in siloes. Like Creatives talking to Account Management about "Your Client", and Account Management discussing "Your Work" with Creatives. This book highlights a time and a culture where everyone was invested in the client getting the best work. Everyone cared. So the Clients did too.
6. Strong, focused (and aligned) leadership.
This was an interesting one, because it plays out so well in the agencies that are successful today. Strong leadership is required in order to have the difficult conversations that are so necessary in this business, both internally and with clients, suppliers and others. But aligned leadership is even more important. The leaders at the top being on the same page.
Bob says "we knew the type of work we wanted to do, and worked together to make that happen". It was never about the money, or keeping business, or meeting budgets. It was about the work. And that was across the board. Too many Account Management and MD's in my opinion believe its okay to throw the work under the wheels and rather do what the client wants. "Keep the peace and collect the cash". Short-term thinking.
7. A company wide commitment to aim higher than you ever thought was possible.
This comes through in the commitment to "the work, the work, the work". It was quite simply all about the work. And the question was asked - is it good enough? Work was developed, it was crafted, it was made better. Always. And the best suppliers, the best film makers, the most impossible ideas were made possible. Which made them great.
Somehow in this era of time-sheets and budget cuts and reduced margins, this commitment and passion for excellence falls by the way. Work is "okay" enough to leave the building. There's an air of compromise. Suppliers are chosen based on staying in budget. And maybe that's just the way of the world. But funnily enough, big ideas generally make big returns that make up for the expense upfront. Not just in advertising - in business. But it takes courage to motivate for that upfront investment. Lesson: be bold and brave. Be courageous.
8. An ethical compass - politically and personally.
The book starts with how Bob got fired from a previous company for what was deemed to be a 'bribe'. This drove his unwavering enforcement of ethics in the company that he, Brian and Roger sought to build. Their ethics came through in how they treated people, it came through in wanting to do the right thing politically, it came through in ensuring that the agency was above board in everything they did.
What agencies don't always understand is that their clients are distrustful of them anyway. Advertising is expensive. Clients imagine that agencies are crooking the books. Dodgy business practices seek only to weaken the industry and have no place in the relationships that need to be built in order to get great work.
9. Fun, more fun and then more on top of that.
People who have never worked in advertising think it's one long party. In fact I had a rule never ever to hire anyone who started an interview with "I've always wanted to work in advertising". It's a relentless, tough, ego-smashing, challenging, sometimes impossible, sometimes soul destroying, job, and it takes a certain type of person to thrive and excel in that space.
It involves long hours and lots of arguments and tempers and yet there is also lots of laughter. People who work in advertising generally have great senses of humour (thank heavens). Part of RSTM's success was creating an environment where people could have fun. Where they could let their hair down, and laugh or cry and run naked across the rooftop, then dust themselves off for another great day at the office.
10. They made money.
Agencies have a tough time these days in between being told what their hourly rates can be, what deliverables they can and can't charge for, how big the logo should be, in addition to marketing budgets being divided amongst more and more specialist agencies or going in-house. Applying all of the nine points above would be pointless without making enough money to pay your talent well, have decent premises, invest in training and inspirational activities and grow a great business.
What comes through in Wallop is that their mission was never "how do we get rich"? There was never a plan to build a great culture because that would make them money. Instead there was a fanatical obsession with making the very best advertising they could for their clients, and an obsession about helping their clients solve their business challenges. And that, in the end, helped them make money.
Valuable lessons.
So, those are ten thoughts from three veterans who were part of putting South Africa on the international map of advertising, that I feel are useful to ponder. I'm sure there are more.
Read the book, reminisce about ads you (or your parents) might remember on the website.
But above all, think about the basic principles:
Agency: Focus on the creative product and look after your people.
Marketer: Invest in relationships with your ad agency at the top and let them be creative.
Adtherapy's mantra is better skills, better relationships, better results. We have a number of ways in which we work with agencies and marketers to make that happen. Read our website www.adtherapy.co.za to see some examples. Better yet, mail gillian@adtherapy.co.za or phone 0832659099 to chat about how we can help you.
