Kimberly-Clark APAC CMO: Clients should cut out agencies and talk to media owners
The APAC chief marketer for consumer goods brands Kimberly-Clark says marketers “lean” too much on media agencies and should instead deal more directly with platform providers and media owners.
Speaking at the Global Marketer Conference in Sydney yesterday Michelle Froah said: “We lean on our media agencies, perhaps too much to be a go between between us and platform partners. If we had more joint business planning and collaboration during constructing the executions we might have better ideas on how to execute.”
Froah was addressing the audience of marketers and agencies about the diversity of the APAC market and the challenges of tailoring products to various cultural markets.
“At Kimberly-Clark we think about diversity across a variety of things,” said Froah. “Today I want to focus on diversity of thought, diversity of approach and diversity of connection.”
“When we talk about diversity of thought we need to be really cognisant of the truth understanding of the insight. Very often observations are confused with insight.”
Froah said they often worked within cultural norms to influence consumer behaviour. Citing Kimberly-Clark’s work across Asia on areas such as clean wipes Froah said: “The retail sales (on clean wipes) has increased because we have change consumer behaviour to not feel clean unless you are using our product.”
Nic Christensen
And what happens when the Media over promises and under delivers?
So many times i have had to fix issues when media owners catch up with clients, the clients expectations are raised and then media doesn’t follow through properly.
Its a nice thought Michelle, like fat free chocolate and sugar free wine…. but in the real world its not going to work.
Media agencies know the best way to work with both media supply partners and clients. They will be well aware of both sides agendas, and can facilitate mutually agreeable outcomes.
A a Marketing Director at a Large US Multinational that has recently embraced this thought bubble. DON’T ! respect the media agency, it is a highly valuable service. be careful what you wish for……
I think Michelle makes a very good point and I think sometimes when a direct partnership is formed there are much better outcomes that just media spend..
Straight out of the “Justifying your existence 101” handbook, ShesDreaming. As a publisher I can assure you Ms Froah is entirely on point. In my experience, in many cases, agencies don’t even have a thorough understanding of their clients’ offerings and objectives, let alone the myriad opportunities various media channels can offer to add value. Again in my experience, the over-promise under-deliver scenario almost always occurs as a result of an agency inserting itself between the client and the media provider. No-one understands the clients’ requirements better than the client, and no-one understands the media company’s proposition better than the media company. To suggest convoluting that process with a middle-man that does not understand enough about either, is pure folly. Speaking of fixing issues, I just returned final premium position artwork to an agency to correct a spelling mistake in the 60-point slogan. I couldn’t count how many times I have rescued a client’s reputation (and that of publications I have been responsible for) from sloppy agency creative, so there may be an argument for covering off on core competencies before venturing into the realms of supposed client / media interaction enhancement
@ShesDreaming Or maybe it’s that attitude which makes media owners and clients want to work together.
No prizes for guessing from the comments who works at an agency and who’s in sales…
I don’t think collaboration is a bad idea at all – but needs to be done in the right way
I agree with Michelle.
Agencies are becoming more about efficiencies and growing their own revenues, leading them to forget about why they exist… solutions for clients.
If only clients knew how some of these agencies are making money off their brands…. churning through inventory to maintain volume deals, setting up agencies within agencies to add another revenue stream. etc.
Respect to the agencies that are not signing trading deals and still believe in the best solution wins.
From someone who has moved from a big agency
I bought a round portable table at ALDI the other day. Using that as an integration platform when conceptualizing a brand story. Creative, media, publisher, content and client all have just enough space. Now just to get everyone to the table.
Some suggested I should provide chairs; but that’s when meetings drag on. Stand and deliver.
Most of the clients I work with don’t have the time or the inclination to swim with the sharks. ATL is a small but important part of the marketing mix best handled by those media profs who have the relationships and can afford the time and effort to manage it
I was in the room yesterday. She definitely said that advertisers should not be scared to engage directly with media owners to get a more integrated outcome. She didn’t say ‘cut out your media agencies’. The headline is over dramatic.
Mumbrella. Seriously. She’s talking about integrating the three parties together in the appropriate way, not ‘cutting out the media agency’. And incidentally, speaking as a media agency person, I completely agree with her. Stop going for the sensationalist headlines and go read the much more balanced AdNews piece on the same story.
Interesting debate.
In my 10 years experience 60% of the time agencies do not pass information on to the clients and are not always straight forward to the media about plans, stratagies and timings. if i had a dollar for every time i have heard “no activity planned” then see activity i could buy a really nice car!
I also find She’s dreaming’s comments a little hard to swallow. it is my experience that that when it comes to really intergrated campaigns across everything but radio and TV the agencies do not have the follow through on the detail.
I agree Rachel in that when you have the three components working openly together you getthe best result. it is sadly rare tho..