Agencies urged to ‘rile up’ clients to take risks
Agencies need to push their clients and “rile them up” to take more risks, MySpace boss Rebekah Horne suggested at Mumbrella Question Time.
Rebekah Horne VP of MySpace International said that agencies were simply “scared to push back on clients”. She added that agencies needed to “really needle them and rile them up when an idea is good”
Meanwhile, Robert Morgan, Clemenger Group executive chairman, told delegates that while it’s important for agencies to have the ability to produce low cost, high volume work, they also need “a team dedicated to the big ideas stuff”.
“It’s a balancing act. If you dedicate yourself to just doing the commodities then you’ll be treated like that because clients are looking for big ideas,” Morgan said.
David May, Jetstar’s GM of marketing said clients tend to be more risk adverse than agencies. He said: ” I think the major barrier is people who don’t want to do new stuff.”
David Lo, who chairs the Australasian Promotional Marketing Association and is boss of The Marketing Zoo, pointed to the FMCG sector as among the biggest culprits.
He added that agencies needed to come up with a strategy to help clients “digest that risk”.
“Don’t be afraid to put the big ideas in there. They don’t get taken up straight away but keep seeding them in there because it’s going to be the best, the most entertaining or the most relevant opportunity that will ultimately get up. It might be two years down the track but those risks have to be taken,” Lo said.
May said the problem with agencies is that:
“The agency world thinks all clients are stupid.”
He argued however that at times when big creative ideas don’t get taken up, it isn’t because they’re bad.
“The point I’m trying to make if you’re going to present something to your CEO, it’s got to be relevant. It’s got to be achieving something. It’s not about people being dense or not being able to grasp things, it’s just not relevant to the business. We’ve had a lot of speculative stuff presented to us and lots of it is actually quite good… but they don’t get up because they’re not relevant,” May said.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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“relevance” – I think that’s where a lot of clients get it wrong. Their view is so introverted. What they see as something that’s ‘not relevant to their business’ may be very relevant to their potential customers.
I’ve never thought clients were stupid. Sometimes they just need to take the blinkers off and take a look at the real picture.
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I think by ‘relevance’ David may have been referring to the lack of appropriate framing of ideas in a way that resonates with CEOs.
CEOs are ultimately focussed on the financial performance of their company – top-line growth and cost control. This focus manifests itself in the vision the CEO has for the business and the strategies that are put in place to realise that vision and produce the financial results he/she is targetting.
The lack of relevance would suggest that CEOs often can’t see the link between the ‘big idea’ and the benefit it would bring to them achieving their goals.
The significant marketing spend cuts we saw last year highlights that the majority of CEOs could not quantify the link between marketing and what they are trying to achieve. In this regard Jetstar are an exception given they increased marketing 15% and subsequently increased profits 40%.
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Completely agree with all that is said above. Agencies really need to fight for their ‘big’ ideas. As Chris has touched on quite often the big ideas are dismissed because of the way that they are framed. The better the commercial potential of a campaign is presented the more likely it is to loosen purse strings.
I actually think it is about making clients more flexible by nature. The more Big Ideas you present. The more acquainted a client is with that form of marketing idea and premise. I speak with a lot of agencies that tell me about what clients will and won’t swallow. That just tells me that they tried, failed and never went back.
Along with the bread and butter work. Agencies should continue to try and encourage a client to be innovative and forward thinking. If the client is risk averse and lacks the ability to think outside the box and look at the big picture. The agency realistically has to take the blame.
For a best practice example, Absolut and Spike Jonze’s new collaboration: http://tinyurl.com/yzodf9h
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I think it’s always good to bring these challenges to the forefront. However, it is a moot point if there is no action. It has been a topic of discussion for many years now (both here and internationally). For a number of reasons, some clients will take risks and others won’t. It’s that simple.
At the end of the day it comes down to choice. You either work with a client that is prepared and willing to take risks (try new things) or you don’t. So you can discuss all you want and fight for ‘big ideas’ or you can accept the fact that you’ve made the wrong decision by accepting to work with a particular client/company that is risk averse.
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depends what is meant by ‘big ideas’
i think for many a ‘big idea’ is something not grounded in any sort of tangible result … or a ‘big idea’ is the term given to a ‘big payday’ for an agency.
‘big ideas’ that generate results will always be welcomed. it’s just often a shabby bloated mess is dressed up as a big idea and i think clients see through these.
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I think it is difficult to quantify the commercial results of ‘big ideas’ or ‘new ideas’ pre-execution. But that is because there is no precedent to work from. Which the Australasian market seems so obsessed with.
I think that if you are the first cab of the rank, produce on brand, innovative and breakthrough work. There will always be dividends paid if not directly commercial at least in the learning you will gain from taking these risks.
Case in point:
Kraft – Ifood
Sagami – Love Distance
Best Buy – Twelp
To name only a few.
PS I do not think you have to spend exorbitant amounts of money to produce brilliant, innovative and result producing ideas.
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David May is correct. Ideas need to be relevant to the business and the business strategy to enhance the brand’s chance of success. Agencies are great at asking everyone else to take a risk but themselves. Even when they do spec work its the poor production company that’s asked to provide their services for nothing.
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I forgot….
Can anyone remember the last time an agency risked their own money [$200K+] for one of their big ideas? Or is it only clients who are supposed to risk money?
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A tricky one. Agencies tend to work with the benefit of not having any experience of their client’s internal operations and therefore work with more freedom when making recommendations. It’s not that all clients are risk adverse, indeed some of the ideas I’ve heard are fantastic and I would have been only too enthusiastic to implement them. But considering the realistic responsibilities I have on a day-to-day level, “larger ideas” need to be better justified, have tighter measurements for success around them and have a clear advantage over the smaller ideas we execute throughout the year. Further to that, one of the biggest obstacles for clients is the “how”. How will this idea be implemented?
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CEO friendly, maybe if their was a profit share structure, an agency would be more willing to stump up cash to implement their ideas. So if a great idea produces 2 million dollars worth of media impressions (with no media spend) or generates a 125 percent increase in sales for a client and the agency has stumped up half the money. Does the agency then get 1 million dollars or 62.5% of the profits from the increase in sales?
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I just finished reading the Rex Briggs book about measuring the ROI of advertising. It’s an interesting read. Seems to me the key takeout is campaign success is about planning and structure and not really about the big idea. It’s simply about telling your target market about the benefits of your product. His research says the difference between an ordinary campaign properly planned and a big idea with the inherent risks makes taking risks just not worthwhile. Also new technologies are delivering on the promise of addressable campaigns. Risk and big ideas are going to be increasingly irrelevant as planning, good research and technology make predicting the outcome more reliable.
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