‘Inter-agency collaboration? I hate it’, admits boss of full service agency 303MullenLowe
The boss of full service agency 303MullenLowe has told how he “hates” working with other agencies and argued it creates nothing but division and inefficiency.
Nick Cleaver: “I think it leads to a huge amount of time wasted in reinvention and argument and discussion and deviation.”
In comments likely to split opinion, Nick Cleaver told the Mumbrella Finance Marketing Summit that collaborating on campaigns leads to a “huge amount of waste”.
He said the time when media and creative began going their separate ways was a dark day for the advertising industry.
Cleaver’s remarks were immediately rejected by the senior marketer of IAG Commercial Insurance, who said it was perfectly possible for agencies to work harmoniously and effectively.
The power of collaboration was the reason the company won awards for its Tropfest campaign, Julia Nelson told Mumbrella.
Asked about 303MullenLowe’s full service model, Cleaver said: “If you’re going to ask me do I enjoy working with other agencies? I hate it.
“Do I believe it’s the most efficient model? No I don’t. I think it leads to a huge amount of time wasted in reinvention and argument and discussion and deviation.
“I am an enormous advocate of media and creativity being one. One of the worst things that ever happened to this industry was the separation of media thinking from creative thinking.”
Cleaver acknowledged it was a “fact of life” that 303MullenLowe needs to work in tandem with other agencies and recognised that clients have “multiple partners”.
“You have to accept that. But do I like it? No I don’t,” he said.
But Cleaver predicted the days of a fragmented agency landscape will soon come to and end, with “clear signs it is breaking down”.
“Media agencies are becoming increasingly powerful and delving into the creative arts,” he said. “Give it another five years and the division will have gone.”
Julia Nelson: “There’s no tolerance for back biting or undermining”
Nelson, senior manager of brand, sponsorships and events at IAG Commercial Insurance – which picked up the inaugural award for collaboration at this year’s Mumbrella Awards – said working with various agencies on its recent Tropfest campaign led to a “powerful” proposition.
“As a client being able to have those blended ideas coming together is very powerful, rather than a traditional agency over here and a traditional agency over there,” she told Mumbrella.
“You have a chance to pick your partners and test them against your idea and then pick and choose the best combination of how those partners respond.”
Nelson said she spent time building trust and creating an environment that thrived on “open and honest conversations”.
“There’s no tolerance for back biting or undermining,” she said.
“There’s also a personality thing. I don’t like working with egomaniacs. I like people who actually sign on to do the right thing for their client, and are not after their own aggrandisement.
“We will win multiple awards for this (Tropfest) campaign because of the collaboration, because the agencies trust the process.
“They trust the client, and they want to do their best work.”
UBank head of marketing, Jo Kelly, said having a lead agency was an outdated approach to marketing.
Jo Kelly: “I am not going to say it’s always an easy and beautiful process. It’s not”
She told the conference that it briefed its agency partners collectively for its All I Need campaign, with no one agency having a greater say than any other.
“It has created a lot of debate amongst the agencies and it doesn’t mean that all the agencies will go ‘wow that’s amazing’, but they will respect the creative idea and execute to achieve the targets that we are looking for,” she said.
“I am not going to say it’s always an easy and beautiful process. It’s not. It’s tension filled, but that is good because we get really good strong outcomes and we get brave work that is going to resonate with people.”
Nice to hear some honesty. Agencies liking collaboration is akin to turkeys voting for xmas.
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When I was a kid, me and my sister would scrap like dogs; biting, scratching and generally being dicks when mum was out of the room. When she came in we’d pretend nothing was happening and it was all peachy. Maybe a sly elbow.
I think Cleaver just said what most agencies are thinking.
Wait ’til Mum finds out.
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The reason why collaboration is impossible is because of the systems the whole media ecosystems uses. Oh wait.. I mean the complete LACK of any system. To think that it’s 2016 and an agency boss has NO idea about what each of his/her staff are doing, and at what stage a project is at. It’s all great to know once it’s been confirmed and in billing. But what about the man hours in strategy, planning, briefing, buying, negotiating, executing… and it’s still all done in spreadsheets, emails and phone calls. With everyone working in their own patch, with no real-time accountability.
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Nick Cleaver is right, at the end of the day we are all fighting for the same dollars, we complain when clients have too many stockholders or line of reports well…this is essentially the same issue, too many agencies, different PNLs, unneeded arguments, meetings etc. and basically the end result is, death by compromise.
This is exactly why big networks create agencies to service big clients (Ford and Blue Hive), many skills and talents, but all under one roof, one PNL and one agency name.
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Well said. Of course it’s a waste of client resources and time. Of course there are some great campaigns that come from cooperation. Could equally great campaigns from integrated single agency groups. Of course. And more efficiently in most cases. Thanks Nick for the honestly
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Whilst I understand the difficulty and frustration of working with different agencies – surely the answer is to create a model whereby people from different agencies (specialists) can work together rather than diluting the offering and trying to provide a service (more often than not generalist) via a single agency.
The market place has evolved to become a complex one – that is best navigated by specialists and not generalists and the issue with the agencies offering ‘full-service’ is that they don’t have (and I don’t believe they will ever have) the scale (breadth and depth) to deliver the specialist services that clients now demand and need.
What needs to change is the commercial model and culture within the current holding companies. People need to be incentivised in a way that truly rewards collaboration (e.g. shadow P&L’s). They need to be more agile and nimble in how they service clients (e.g. a matrix style offering). And the egos at the top need to be chopped down.
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Couldnt agree more – and love Mike’s comment re kids fighting! Interesting how the speakers advocating for it are the clients, they will never experience the horror that happens in the background – especially the endless attempts to thieve your part of the pie by others – it is exhausting defending your turf rather than just being able to settle in and focus. Nick has said what most of us think, and more importantly have endlessly experienced. A caveat I have though is specialists working as a collective for a client. In my experience this is wildly different (and probably what the client thinks they have made but haven’t) where you, the agencies, choose to collaborate with partners you are compatible with, trust and work well with to pitch for and work on projects. The two key words there being choose and trust. Good on you Nick, someone needed to say it.
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The agency guy knows what he’s talking about. The client wouldn’t have a clue.
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My experience in the past when there was one agency was this. Creative came up with ideas, media was briefed last after the ideas and direction were set.
By the time media became involved the creative had specific ideas to where their creative should be seen. It should be on TV or on cinema or on an outdoor billboard. Sometimes this contradicted the environment which would deliver the best audience results.
In the current era the most successful campaigns, which importantly measure the campaign results, are developed by creative and media teams who EQUALLY appreciate each other’s ideas and knowledge. The greatest results for a client live in the fusion of both disciplines.
Media bring a wealth of audience insight and creatives bring a wealth of knowledge on how to communicate well in a specific channel.
Successful agencies recognise that each party plans an equal role. Media people are not going to work for full service agencies if their depth of knowledge is not appreciated or in fact highly valued. Media is not a secondary thought. In fact it is critical to the success of the campaign.
Clients appreciate having the best media people and the best creative working for them.
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+1 Maddox Heatley
Virginia
I agree with you totally and I endorse your recollection of the disparity in status between the creative and media disciplines. If there has been a benefit of the separation it’s that media thinkers have demonstrated their prowess and importance so that when they come back together under one roof with creatives they do so as equals, both playing crucial and complementary roles in the development of ideas and campaigns. That’s the way our full service offering works and it will be the way the future union of creative and media disciplines work.
Nick
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Always best to have one agency if you can get all the skills in one place. And I agree with Nick – collaboration is hard; sometimes impossibly. Good on you Nick for being so open and honest about it – but why would anyone pretend it was actually enjoyable to cooperate with your competition? It’s silly to think anyone would.
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I’ve been around for a few years. Worked in media for more than 10 years in full service agencies. I always felt my contributions were valued and respected. The client got much better value back then compared to the separation of powers which now exists and results in jockeying for strategic supremacy and revenue, inefficiency and pathetic small time politics.
Agency insiders know it’s broken.
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If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn’t thinking, and in essence if you pay one supplier that’s what you risk getting. Competition is (on balance) more competitive (and probably more innovative) than consolidation. Especially in the atomised post digital media landscape we inhabit where generalism means a generic solution.
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