We do like to stir things up at The Joneses, and we’re glad we’ve got a few people fired up with this debate – (Catch up with the conversation: question 1, question 2, question 3, question 4) notably when it comes to research, which, at the end of the day, impacts the subject of the other questions.
So to give people a chance to catch up and fight it out as to whether In a world of businesses like Zappo’s and Google, do you need a strategic brand idea to be highly successful? and yesterdays six billion dollar question: what can we learn from companies like Facebook and Twitter that do not appear to have a revenue model? Stay tuned, we’re saving our wrap up for next week.
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Thank you Gill & Rupert for spurring debate.
As “the client” on the conference panel, I’ve stayed on the sidelines this week and read with interest what others have written. My conclusion is that many of you don’t like clients, don’t respect clients…view us with disdain even. And with that as your starting point it’s little wonder you fail to sell us your big, radical, new “unbenchmarkable” ideas.
Like any relationship, there has to be understanding, respect and trust. Clients have to feel confident you understand our business, that you respect our expertise and decisions. We have to trust you have our brand’s interests at heart. And that takes a lot of time and effort on your part. Rarely will you be able to walk in and persuade us to buy something new because you think you’re great. We have to think you’re great and we have to trust you. Only then will we go to market without research; do, learn, fix, repeat; and follow your intuition.
Now, if I’d set up an equivalent discussion among brand people, you would have probably seen an equal lack of respect from us. Both sides are at fault. There is a huge need for clients to view agencies like true brand partners and not vendors; to understand the creative process so we can respond intelligently and appropriately to ideas; and to understand what good research is, when to do it, and how to interpret it properly.
Mutual respect, mutual understanding and mutual trust. When you have that you have a genuine partnership. Then you can leap off a cliff together with your grand new idea.
No client wants their name on ineffective marketing, poor design, and small ideas. But as the new and the breakthrough often come with risk, we want some level of confidence that we’ll be successful. In the absence of a great relationship with our agency to provide that confidence, we will fall back on the conventional and the safe…and we will look for confidence through research rather than intuition.
Big ideas only happen when client and agency are a true team. Much of your criticism of clients is legit. But understand us and help us, don’t just throw stones at us.
June 6th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
I think you’ve raised the fundamental issue here Paul.
There are rare cases of trust between clients and agencies who grow together, the obvious one being Nike and Wieden, who, incidentally, have taken risks from the very beginning.
This debate was intended to establish tangible ways – ‘4 new rules’ – to help more of us have the kind of relationship they have.
We had hoped to glean new ideas, tangible tools and opinions to help make great ideas happen, because, at the end of the day, it’s what we all get out of bed in the morning to do.
All good debates are polarizing, that’s what makes it a debate, and I’m glad people said what they really think.
Having said that, we’re an industry who spend A LOT of time TALKING about the value of great ideas, and that we need to change how we sell more stuff to more people yada yada.
With all this talk, we have at least established we are having the wrong kinds of conversations with clients.
The problem is, we still haven’t worked out what the right one is.
Piers, you might need to do a conference about client/agency trust with mediators instead of moderators, and end with a group hug.
June 6th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Paul, I think you’ve hit on a fifth new principle, something like, “it’s time to reinvent the client agency relationship”, because the way the system works right now encourages both sides to show symptoms of codependency.
For this to change I think clients have got to start valuing ideas, and the effort that goes into having them, rather than expecting them for free, because bad clients abuse this and it justifiably leads to disdain.
The heart of the problem is the entirely corrupt pitch process.
Whether you are a small agency that has to do-a-weeks-work-to-get-a-weeks-work, or, a large agency that spends upwards of $50k and a few weeks of unpaid work on a pitch, win or lose, this augurs for an abusive relationship.
The current pitch process does not encourage a proper understanding of the business or a frank and honest exchange of the issues. How could it? It’s a quick shoot out.
And, for every good client there’s a bad one who will brief for a “fully integrated idea”, you present something you think is not half bad that works from p.o.s to possibly a new product or service, then they take twice as long as they said they would to make a decision, you lose, and six months later you see a press ad that’s just a pack shot.
Or, incredulously the client that wants you to sign a pitch letter saying words to effect of if we like your work but prefer another agency we retain the right to give them your strategy and idea to execute. True story. Disdain? That ain’t the half of it.
I would definitely respect the decisions clients make if more if the decisions they made were about the idea and not about internal politics. I’d also feel a little better about it if clients aggregated and acknowledged our experience in what works and why – across all the businesses we’ve worked on – rather than wanting to see a carbon copy case study from the same product category.
Understanding the creative process is hellishly tough, because really and truly, there isn’t one. But, you raise a extremely good point about judgement. Heretical though this will sound rather than spending a few weeks at Wharton people should attend Robert McKee’s Story Seminar, with extra credits for a paper on literal versus figurative thinking.
So, yes, absolutely trust is the issue, and that as in any courtship can only come through time and a meeting of like minds.
Imagine this.
A prospective client phones agency and says “Hey, I saw something you did/ found you while surfing the web, I like the way you guys think, I don’t have a project for you right now but I’d like to meet, have a chat and see if it might lead somewhere over the next year”.
Sounds like a fun date, less pressure and even over 12 months less up front work for both parties, so why does it happen so infrequently?
Because broadly speaking many clients, not all, don’t really value what we do, don’t take the time to really understand it, and, crucially, won’t be there in 12 months time.
June 10th, 2009 at 1:53 am