How do you make your agency better? It’s the strategy, stupid
Nick Kavanagh, Chief Strategy Officer, iProspect, has heard many people say that they wish their media agency was “better”. But what exactly does that mean? Kavanagh asked around and got some answers.
“…I just wish my media agency was better.”
We moved into a new place over the Christmas break (remember that thing?) so had quite a few friends pass through. One of which, a close friend who happens to be a head of marketing, casually dropped this into the conversation.
I didn’t ping them on it at the time – I think Ouzo was involved – but the comment stuck with me.
I’ve spoken to them about it since though. In detail. And because what they said to me was so compelling, I also spoke to a heap of other client friends to see whether they agreed. And if they did, how did they think their media agency could be better? These are marketers at leading organisations, working with both independent and networked agencies. Some of them very senior. Most have worked agency-side. And to a person, they pretty much all said the same thing.
Good article.
Media agencies are really good (some of the time) at media planning. Sometimes they call this media or communications strategy, but it’s media planning.
I don’t know of any media agencies that are trained in, or would know how to do business, or brand, or creative strategy.
I disagree with this. Having worked in and led strategy teams for well over a decade now, this is nonsense. Strategists by nature are lifelong learners – never content with what was done before, training is a constant, both formally and self-led. Modern-day “media” strategists can actually do business, brand, creative and comms strategy very well – alongside media, but clients so often want everything brought back to media in order to keep us in our lane. The best clients are those that say to their strategists, “here is our process, how and where can you help us?” – and then let us go. That, is when game-changing work is created across all those dimensions.
The real challenge for clients is agreeing to empower your strategist beyond comms planning.
So creative strategy is strategy but media strategy is planning. Nice. Also media people can’t do business strategy…I wouldn’t trust you with any strategy because you can’t see things from any perspective but your own.
Most strategies sound generic until they are executed creatively. Everyone thinks the strategy will solve everything, they put a lot of weight in it, and are then disappointed when it sounds thin. I’m not surprised agencies are then blamed for not getting the ‘silver bullet’ right. The devil is in the details. And in execution.