Can behavioural economics help improve agency relationships?

As with most articles on BE, it’s an interesting read, albeit one that doesn’t solve anything.

Interesting article. Loved the following paragraph

” the biggest cost in agencyland is that of redoing our work: Spending longer and longer trying to crack the idea, prevented from moving on to the next milestone. What if we re-framed the task from one of winning to one of greater productivity and fewer wasted hours? Reduce the time taken to agree on the strategy and the idea, and leave everyone with more time to execute. Couldn’t re-framing things like this lead to more fluid collaboration?”

I love the example of behavioral economics here with agency relationships. Behavioural economics in the market place is based off the idea of taking advantage of a short term loss of balance between what is known and what is speculated. In the market this usually leads to the wild pricing of young companies on their IPO. However the market always corrects itself over time as the hard data is revealed and the price of the stock returns to normalcy. What is true here in the market is true with agency relationships, the most efficient client relationships are formed through open and transparent communication. With media and creative agencies both safeguarding their work and methods we get all sorts of disjointed ideas and poor executions. Reframing the relationship from a competition to an open collaboration would be a great place to start in getting rid of inefficiency. Great article!

I think the idea of a combined award in all of this years shows is a superb one. It not only incentivises at least two teams to work to a common goal (client success and delivery of the “best” ideas) but ensures continued recognition of those that rise above the political crap and who gets on with the job.

Nice piece! It’s so hard to get genuine collaboration between agency and client (or agency and agency) – I like the reframing around productivity. Giving up ownership, or sharing it, more accurately, is certainly key.

I’d like to see this notion expanded to include improved collaboration with top Australian publishers. Sadly, more often than not, the publisher is left with coming up with the ideas that the media agency shuts down without the creative agency even across them.

A well written piece Simon. Collaboration is the keyword here, and I would add the relationship both the creative and media agencies develop with their key media partners is another critical component. It almost always results in a much better outcome for all parties involved, and the client most of all.

Really interesting perspective – good timing too as we kick into the new year. The biggest thing I’ve seen is that success can sometimes depend on whether people are willing to leave their egos at the door in order for ideas to grow and develop into truly spectacular ones.

So we should work more collaboratively with clients. Brilliant. Just another article that uses “behavioural economics” terms to over-intellectualise common sense.

Finally the shibboleth of ‘rational choice’ s debunked. Advertisers have known it’s crap for years. Otherwise all ads would simply be product descriptions with prices attached, rather than the pleas to status, greed and fear we spend our lives creating.

Perhaps there are lessons for the wider economy too?

Great article Simon – exquisitely thought out and articulated. Really see major benefits in the reframing and team award concepts for improving the fragility and competencies of the media & creative agency dynamic/relationships. .

As a industry recruiter for nearly 10 years I am always surprised at the lack of respect most sides of the industry have for each other. The rancour for each side (media and creative) is really palpable and extremely disturbing. I guess its because only a very few people have worked on both sides. As they saying goes “walk a mile in my shoes”.

Lets hope 2014 sees a greater economic regard and empathy within the industry.

Congrats again Simon.

Such an interesting article Simon – thanks for taking the time to write it and capture what sounds like a lot of painstaking reading and research into a smartly-written piece.

Love the thrust of this article. As someone who works with organisations and teams around the way they make decisions, I often see people talk about ‘better collaboration’, but not have the tools or understanding to actually deliver on it. And it sure doesn’t mean having more meetings. I would only add that this area of collaboration is a bit bigger than behavioural economics, you could also add some game theory (like the old ‘prisoner’s dilemma’…) and lashings of psychology.