‘Clients are uncomfortable with the way their agencies approach them’, agencies warned
Agencies have been warned they may be nailing briefs, but they are failing to solve actual business problems, by a panel of former agency heads who moved on to head up big brands.
Jenny Williams, Luke Dunkerley, Paul Bennett and Julia Varigiu on the panel
“Universally clients say they feel uncomfortable with the way their agencies approach them,” said moderator Julia Vargiu, founder and principal of New Business Methodology, leading the Mumbrella360 panel that boasted a combined 70 years of client-side and 25 of agency-side experience.
“As a CMO you’re trying to solve a business issue. Quite often the agency solves the brief but it doesn’t actually solve the business problem,” said Jenny Williams whose career has included roles at Tribal, DDB and until last month was CMO at health insurer HCF.
Maybe the problem isn’t the agency but the client delivering the brief:
“As a CMO you’re trying to solve a business issue. Quite often the agency solves the brief but it doesn’t actually solve the business problem.
If the agency solves the brief but doesn’t the solve the business problem, it sounds like the business problem wasn’t in the brief OR the brief wasn’t solved in the first place
@Paul That was exactly my thought as well.
I really liked Luke’s measured response which rightly points out that clients very often expect too much from their agencies and/or mistreat the relationship. Even today it seems many so-called sophisticated marketers demand consistent improvement in key campaign or business metrics without even providing the necessary sales information in return to inform agency decisions.
@Darren – Fair call
However when it comes to expectations one must understand where these are bred from. How do we make a shift to understand the CMO better and influence them towards our field of expertise.
I would say that 90% of the disappointed endured within adland is as a direct result of over-selling and under-delivering, an approach fuelled by pressure to turn revenue in businesses which have deep flowing structural issues.
How much of the good work that many do undermined the issues created by others or problems created by those before. One could classify that as “victim” however the player/victim scenario is reliant on certain situations.
On the client side I had the same thing, with unsolicited pitches coming from people telling us what we were doing ‘wrong’ and providing creative that was supposed to be revolutionary. It came with such arrogance and expectation too. It wasn’t even close to solving the business issues; and work we already had underway (and not yet public) was leaps ahead. Some agencies can be arrogant or ignorant of the client side process at the very least.
I agree with @Paul that the client’s briefing needs to be clear what the business problem is and how the immediate brief is solving that. I think Williams also has a point though that some agencies can take the brief too literally and don’t have the bigger picture in mind. Often the work loses it’s strategic integrity the further along the production chain. With people and suppliers down the line working on the work who don’t have any idea of the business issues or strategy it can miss the business objectives but still meet brief.
If anyone is interested I wrote a white paper on closing the gap between strategy and execution after a research exercise with industry professionals to figure out how to solve this.
https://goo.gl/XKO8nw
Hi Anne, the link to your white paper doesn’t appear to be working. Would you mind re-posting another link or perhaps even emailing me a copy please?
Many thanks.
PD
“As a CMO you’re trying to solve a business issue. Quite often the agency solves the brief but it doesn’t actually solve the business problem,” said Jenny Williams. Agree with Paul above. CMO’s should have a look at their briefing process – often done by quite junior marketers who don’t understand the business problem themselves.
@ Tom – the same applies to agencies sending pitches to publishers asking the world, paying a cent and having a few hours to complete.
All the while knowing that the decision will come down to people and perks not addressing a problem or need.
I don’t think a tight brief solves the problem. The CMO or the business itself needs to solve the business problem.
So true @Liam. If we are solving the problem then what is the CMO doing 🙂
Love a good barney over logistics! Clients select agencies on their merit at the time and agencies will do almost anything to win business. Not sure where an intellectual answer to operations fits within these two separate but converging elements. Rarely do clients profile an agency team as well as they do their own employees and suffer the pitch outcomes. They then expect their in-house teams to be educated enough to handle a major predator agency crew. This is a little like “Married at First Sight”, amusing , gripping and as well researched from the participants point of view.
Bennet is an old hand and he knows, whatever he says, that an agency says “Yes” what’s the question. By the nature of agencies and clients only the very smartest of both clients and agencies invest in mutual education and thereby create long term working relationships. Solution, look to successful relationships and replicate them within your environment and expect to get about 50% right. Expect to Invest!!