Marketers told: Watch the briefs 22-year-olds at your media agencies are sending on your behalf
Smith: Radical variation in quality of briefs
Marketers should instruct their media agencies to copy them in on all of their briefs to media owners, one of Australia’s most senior marketing directors has urged.
Ed Smith, who started today in his new role as executive director of sales and marketing at Foxtel, made the comments at event hosted last night by Mumbrella.
Smith raised an issue which has long been an irritation for media sales teams. Many media owners complain that media agencies often drop last minute, ill thought out briefs on them, allow the media owner to do the hard work of proposing a strategy, then present the solution back to the client as their own thinking.
Smith, until yesterday group marketing director of News Limited told the audience:
“I’ve got one very provocative tip, having worked client side, agency side and publisher side. As a client, I will want to now see the brief the agency gives the media company, I want to be copied on that.
“Because the time frame that they’re given and the quality of those briefs varies radically. And there are a whole bunch of overworked 22-year-olds at media agencies and I look at the millions and millions of dollars that are invested. As a client I want to see a copy of the brief that the publisher sees, as it goes out.”
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large.
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I second that
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I agree 1000%
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doesn’t matter how long they have been working in media – most of the time the plan you get back will still be;
1 x 30sec TVC
1 x press strip
1 x outdoor
1 x digital banner
0 x creative idea
yes i am in a creative agency.
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Wouldn’t add much to the workload, most only take 3 minutes to read and they all use small words.
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You should actually start a little thing on Mumbrella where media companies can fess up to being behind the creative and strategic awards. There are many trips to Cannes that agencies have taken credit for when the media owners roll their eyes and just let them take the credit for what was their own creative response to a brief.
Doubt it will ever happen. The relationship between the media organisation and the advertising agency is structurally corrupted by the ad spend.
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Part of the increasing problem of lots of 22 year old hamsters running on treadmills without management or mentors. And it is certainly not confined to media agencies. They are cheap which keeps agency costs down to maintain profit margins. They may be passionate and cheap but in the end with lack of support they either end up producing ineffective work or cost more money or even worse still both!
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Surely any brief should be signed off by the client beforehand rather than at the time of briefing??? Agree quality is paramount but that smacks of lazy agency management if you just want to be cc’d
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all media owners please note: ultimately it is the client who holds the chequue book
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isnt the old adage generally true you pay for what you get. it would be good though as a publisher to get advance warning and a thorough brief, not ‘I need this by 5’.
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Smart idea that will assist transparency. Good thinking.
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To all those clients who may be worried about “overworked 22 year olds” working on their business, I feel your pain. How about you send in the procurement team again to review your agency’s fee structure. That way, the agency can replace those annoying young things with even cheaper 18 year olds.
You pay peanuts guys…
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When I worked on the client side, I still had very good relationships with the media owners. We didn’t let the media agency apply blinkers.
One thing that I know happend frequently was that we would brief the agncy with the proper timeframe to allow for quality responses, only to find out that media partners were briefed a week before the response was due back to us.
They then wondered why we needed to keep reveiwing the responses asking for updated information and ideas???
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here here. it must be said that some agencies are much better and much more thorough with their briefing process than others. Take a bow Ikon and UM
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What is this brief you speak of?
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Seriously Ed? You really want to see every brief that goes to a media owner?
What’s the point in hiring a media agency if you don’t trust them to do their job? Just get a 22yr old in your marketing team to do it instead…makes more sense doesn’t it? Oh wait…then your media would probably cost you are shite load more….oops.
Oh, and of the “millions” invested, my guess is the agency only take a slither of it….shockingly, the rest is actually spent on media…..now lets look at how much you pay your creative agency….
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Sounds like ageism to me. The client should be responsible enough to appropriately brief and manage their agencies. Being cc’d in doesn’t compensate for that responsibility.
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Agreed. Cut a brother some slack.
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Great timing on this, Tim: just on lunch. Gives the media guys plenty of time to get pissed up on media credit cards while organizing the next kick-back/junket before rolling back into the office and really firing this thread up!
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What a load of rubbish.
Good media agencies write good briefs and collaborate respectfully with their media partners.
Clients on the other hand screw their agencies, dictate what margins they will “allow” and then have the nerve to make comments like Ed’s.
22yo staff is about all they can afford these days.
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totally agree. And a lot of briefs come through and they want something as a media first / 360 degree integration and yet you ask how will the campaign be determined to be a success and there is no reply
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It breaks my heart to see what’s happened to the briefing process over the years. The Advertising Gods must be getting ready to flood our entire World and start over. By the way, the media owners/sales teams should never come back with a campaign strategy.
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Getting cc’d on a briefing email, what a radical idea.
Whatever this guy is getting paid it isn’t enough!
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Laziness and Stupidity has nothing to do with age. This is a poorly researched article, just like the briefs being criticized.
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How about you pay your media agency a bit more Ed, rather than screw a new one every three years. There’s a reason that there’s 22 year-olds writing your briefs and that’s because you didn’t want to pay for the 32 year-olds.
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The thinking behind this is that a physical brief document is the most important element, when in fact its an open, transparent conversation face to face as THE brief which gets the best work. More questions, more conversation, more trust in the media owner to recommend what their formats can and can’t do, more sharing from agency about what their task is on the project. Same goes with briefing between client and agency – fewer reliance on interpreting documents, more mutual understanding of the business objectives and how the assets of media owners can fulfill that.
Perhaps the ‘copy in’ on the brief is actually a meeting with key media partners so everyone is on the same page from day one.
Sure there needs to be a document to refer back to again, but I’d hate to think that an email would represent (that my clients would judge from) my entire briefing process with media.
Obviously there are limitations, and a time and place for this, but that’s where the best work comes from.
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it doesnt matter what the media *agency* should be doing – Ed’s point is that they are often lazy and can’t be trusted.
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This is so true. Having worked for major publishers for over 10 years, I have witnessed agencies getting slacker and slacker, increasingly wanting fully thought out proposals turned around in hours off the back of wishy washy briefs. The agencies are in many cases piggy-backing on ideas from the publishers and taking the credit (and their 10%)!
Many of the most creative and successful campaigns come from direct publisher and client relationships. Publishers will always need direct relationships with their clients. Not through PRs, and not through ad agencies.
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In all fairness, I know the 22 year olds work hard, long hours and in most cases are underpaid. In an ideal world I’d wake up to brekafast in bed, with someone cooling me down by swaying a very big leaf, picked off my Jack in the beanstalk tree… but the reality is, as ad spends become tighter (due to obvious economic reasons) and people expect more for less, briefs will come through late. One to two days notice is hard work and places a lot of pressure on everyone involved…. You all need to get over it because it’s not going to change. Welcome to the fast paced industry we all love and sometimes hate.
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Let’s face it media owners deserve good briefs and ample time to provide responses otherwise – crap in crap out!!! ALSO media agencies need to be paid appropriately to ensure that the staff who provide these briefs have the experience to leverage the benefits that Media Owners can provide.
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So the 30 year olds hate the 26 year olds, the 26 year olds hate the 22 year old graduates and the grads hate the interns right?
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Common people, get real, hardly anyone knows how to brief. In most cases, Clients produce over-complicated myopic documents full of unrealistic and ambiguous objectives. Creative agencies are not sure what to think about the new media world and are frustrated by their loss of control. And yes, Media companies (including UM and IKON) have all but abandoned training and mentoring due to resource and cost pressures. So, who do we blame? Ridiculously skinny fees media companies earn. Clients, if you screw your media company, you are actually screwing yourself
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Hear, hear!
The rubbish my staff and I wade through on a daily basis is ridiculous. It’s really not rocket science!
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Agree with most of the comments.
it is usually the publishers that come up with the killer ideas, create 40 page prezzos, all turned around in 48 hours off a 3 paragraph brief. and often do not get any feedback at all weeks later, or the occasional “oh we just went with TV with that one.”
Agencies need to lift their game and brief properly and COMMUNICATE more often.
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Having worked for media broadcasters and agencies, I can say with the utmost confidence that *some* of the media agency briefs sent to media companies are unfit for dogs’ breakfasts – and any decent strategy or creative that can be eeked out of the media brief (by a 21 y.o in-house copywriter) is quickly claimed by the agency as theirs. These briefs should be seen by the client – absolutely.
But it also works the other way. Some media agencies who give a damn send through awesome briefs making the relationship with the media house a productive and often successful one. Everyone wins. And you know what, the client feels less inclined to interfere.
Trust and respect, as flowery and pompous it sounds, are key. That applies to clients, agencies and media owners. Good people do good work – regardless of age – but very much dependent on the attitude of those running the show.
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“a whole bunch of overworked 22 year olds” there definitely are. Maybe if marketing managers took a look at what they actually pay their media agencies and threw in a little more cash instead of screwing our margins down to the bare minimum there would be more people getting paid a decent amount of money and hence willing to hang around past the first couple of years of slave driving. These over worked 22 year olds could get paid more at maccas for a hell of a lot less stress. The entire industry needs a shake up. And yes media owners deserve good briefs, but media agencies often don’t get good briefs from marketing managers. And sometimes we don’t have the time to do the marketing managers work as well as our own.
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There are 3 different situations to this situation:
Yes, some of the briefs coming from agencies are shit. This can come from anyone, any age though. If the 22 year old is sending a shit brief, it’s likely because this is what they’ve seen in the past from a mentor who’s sending the same shit briefs.
I also think there are a lot of shit briefs coming from clients – yes sometimes there aren’t even any briefs but a strategic plan is still expected from media & publishers. Sometimes the clients tried to combine 4 different plans into 1 brief and 1 budget. Short turn around times for the publisher typically come from a tight turn around for the media agency to present back to client. Anyone been asked to turn around a 12 month plan in a day? I have! Everyone knows you’re not getting the best work, it’s no secret.
My last point is that there are a lot of good briefs coming from media agencies. Sometimes you get a good response but others, no matter how much detail and thought starters you incorporate and how much time you give to respond, you’re still chasing publishers for their responses that come back either completely off brief or little effort thrown into it. You mean to tell me I wrote a 3 page brief for you to tell me I can have ROS banners and a DPS and the titles recommended are completely off brand or it’s just a recycled idea a competitive brand didn’t buy last month?
Everyone is time poor, everyone needs good training to produce good work no matter what side of the business you work in. A good campaign needs to come from a good collaborative effort between all partners with good transparent communication. That’s how you produce a good brief/response/campaign.
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It’s true. A lot of account managers on both publisher and agency side are quite young. There’s nothing wrong with that. Ed has got it right though; the briefs media owners get are often quite badly thought out (if at all), ambiguous, and dropped in with little time for the media owner to respond decently. I’d be a rich youngin’ if I had a dollar every time an agency has wanted something “different” and “creative”, but have not put any thought into it themselves. After you think about it for a while and propose something that’s actually pretty awesome and will provide great results, they then expect prices lower substantially lower than what they would have just paid for the space/time. Not saying this happens every time, but it happens too often.
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One amazing Fashion Editor said to me “you work with the best, you get the best”.
Relates to media campaigns too, you work with the best (agencies, media owners), you get the best.
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@godirect It is laughable that you think they media agencies are running away with the 10%. If that were the case, there would be a lot less crap briefs
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So while everyone is commenting on this thread, who is reading the briefs?
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No worries mate, read every media brief… Further to this majority of the time we don’t even get media brief’s from the clients with fundamentals with basic demographic insights or campaign objectives. (Not that I’m complaining about the people who pay my bills). We make assumptions on the clients behalf if need be as that is what they pay us for. Also to Mr. 0 creative insight, there is a fine line between creative insight and media strategy, come talk to me when you get your creative to the media on time, or when you or your lackeys are begging for a material extension.
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Ease up on the litte ones, they are the cogs that make this world go around. holllatchaboi
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Who you calling 22….bitch?
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More and more, a brief simply advises the media of the product, the timing and the target audience. Sometimes if you’re lucky, they’ll include a budget.
It is very rare to receive any insight into the strategic thinking behind the brief, assets available or even what result is hoping to be achieved.
Despite this, responses are invariably to include a creative stunt, experiential concepts, promotions, events, point of sale- or anything else a marketing plan requires. All as added value of course.
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If anybody would like to email me examples of poor briefs they’ve received from media agencies, I’d be interested to take a look. Anonymity guaranteed.
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
tim@focalattractions.com.au
Half the really good campaigns are devised by the publishers after receiving a ‘brief’ that says client X wants campaign around this … do you have any ideas?
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What is wrong with young people working in media? is it that experience people feel threaten by young talent?
Most of the times, these kids do all the hard work, while “Directors” spend the time on …
Anyway, People, learn to value a person, not for the age, but for his/hers skills and remember: That young kid, could be the boss of many (Mark Zuckerberg) in this industry.
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And what about some poor briefs from clients while you’re at it, Tim?
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“I’ve got one very provocative tip, having worked client side, agency side and publisher side. As a media company creative, I will want to now see the brief the client gives the media agency, I want to be copied on that.
“Because the information that they’re given and the quality of those briefs varies radically. And there are a whole bunch of overworked 22-year-olds client-side and I look at the tens of hundreds of dollars that are invested. As a media company employee who is left to polish a turd with a sock, I want to see a copy of the brief that the agency sees, as it goes out.”
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@mumbrella
ask for the client brief that the media brief came from as well otherwise that’s a bit 1 sided. Can’t pull great work out of thin air.
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Yes please!
I’ve been watching the briefs of 22 year olds for quite some time now.
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Tim,
There is also the all too common document known as the ‘reverse brief’ where the agency writes themselves a brief based on cobbled together bits of information gleaned from a few phone calls and emails and then gets the client to say (hopefully in writing!) that yes, they agree that is the task at hand. Those 22 year olds (who sometimes are also 42 year olds) are in marketing departments too. Brief writing at the client end, agency end and media owner end is all pretty much a lost art.
Incidentally, do people still seriously think media people are out to lunch everyday? The days of 10% and long lunches left when media commission and service fees became negotiable…10+ years ago?
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Now dreading the day I turn 22.
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And while you are at it you should set up a list of campaigns that were actually conceptualised and created by the media company responding to the brief.
Then see if (any) credit is shared with the media partner come awards time.
I know that over in Willoughby it’s a source of much mirth…….
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Lazy clients, lazy agencies, lazy media owners probably make up at least 70% of our world. The rest are good or great, or at least are respectful to others and have some genuine passion for what they do.
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the grammar in these posts is terrible, only in media.
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Micro manager!
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Cut out agencies and go direct. Problem solved.
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@ The Fence
Love it
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Sound like sensible comments to me. For a marketing client, and a media one at that, who spends a significant amount of money on media, then Ed is well within his rights to get closer to the thinking behind how his brand’s money is invested. Especially if he is not confident about the quality of work/thinking that is currently going on, which clearly he isn’t.
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the industry generally is lazy so you are going to get some lazy people on all sides of the equation. there are some good people too.
anyone ever gotten a foxtel brief from their agency? i have … ed might want to sort that out first.
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I am not sure that checking everything everybody does within it. is a good way to direct the sales and marketing department.
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Going the other way Ed.
What about the great value adds devised by publishers that never make it to the client?
Frequently, I’ve dealt with digital campaigns, offered to add value in print.
The digital gets signed off and in trying to advance the value add for the client the agency will raise weak or no excuses.
From being client side media folk offering freebies reaching relevant audience is difficult to argue with… then again the client can’t complain if they’re unaware what’s on offer huh.
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To those of you slagging off 22 year olds – how many of you were writing briefs at 22 that you would now consider great?
Lay off us youngeons who albeit may not be experienced but who are in most cases trying really bloody hard! Instead teach us what we are doing wrong – rather than anonymously slandering us.
If your 22 year old kid came to you and asked you to read a brief that they had written for their new job that you thought was crap, would you still be so pigheaded?
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The day clients pay to have senior resource on their business is the day agencies provide it – it’s ridiculous for clients to complain about a resource they are paying a pittance for.
Having said that, i am happy to cc my clients on media briefs, because my agency team does an AMAZING job. Be good for clients to understand just how much work goes into the process of responding to a major brief.
Ed, I am not too sure News Ltd would shine through if my clients were cc’d on some of the ‘News’ responses to brief. . . . . Just saying.
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Sure, 22 year-olds – the ones not nurtured enough – working on a piece of business can be a problem; sometimes they don’t care or they’re too lazy, or, to give them the benefit of the doubt (and we should), sometimes they just don’t have the guidance internally to understand what information is necessary to receive the best response. The ones not nurtured are there either because the agency isn’t paying enough attention, or because it’s all clients can afford. And the latter point isn’t always the client’s fault – agencies can drop their pants to win or keep a piece of business and then unfairly pile it all on junior’s desk, to the detriment of all three parties.
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FYI – publishers.
Stupid timelines are imposed by inept clients. Also your “strategies” are not going to win anyone awards.
Yes i have worked in media and creative agencies.
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@ Agency Guy “Just get a 22yr old in your marketing team to do it instead…makes more sense doesn’t it? Oh wait…then your media would probably cost you are shite load more….oops”.
What a load of rubbish!
I guarantee you will pay more for media purchased through the agency than you would if you baught it direct.
Not only are the rates inflated by media agencies, the briefs are rubbish too, they often hinder ideas & strategy, particularly where the agency asks for maximum reach, often at the expense of strategically placed spots, and at the expense of frequency and the expense of creative ideas and smartly integrated campaigns.
Oh and they ask for for maximum reach particularly to cover their own ass, having no faith in the campaign, they can pass the buck for a failed campaign claiming they breifed and purchased the right medium with the best numbers… LAZY & WEAK.
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young people aren’t the problem… some of them are smarter and more inventive than their seniors. it’s the quality of the agency rep not their age that’s the issue.
I stopped buying through ageny 2 years ago, and our results have improved drastically (awareness, loyalty, new business sales, etc…), and our budgets have been reduced by 30% (partly due to smarter campaigns, but also in part due to lower rates when negotiated direct and waiting for good deal opportunities that you never hear about from the agency.
Plus the savings of $50,000 per year by paying no agency commissions and instead hiring 2 part time media buyers, one 22 yo (ironically) and one 36 year old.
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@Rubbish – Agree with your first comment about collaboration but you seem to have left out an important group – the client. It is clear what your position is on clients though. Why the animosity about the fee structure – not getting paid enough individually or is the business financially stretched through poor negotiation?
Useless discussion when related to fees as collectively we aren’t in it just for thepure joy of it. Exclude those working in NFP who do actually have a greater good in mind, which I commend but for everyone else let’s not kid ourselves.
Here’s the business model for everyone – client/media/creative:
Do less for more revenue
Do more for more revenue
Do something different for more revenue
Some have passion and care about the journey and endgame but many don’t.
Crap people and relationships – crap input – crap output.
Just need to remember who has the most skin in the game – ultimately it is the business/company trying to maxmise their impact upon the market. Ed probably has a fair bit of skin in the game …..
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Dear valued CLIENTS, you should allow your media agencies to earn the full 10% commission, ON TWO CONDITIONS:
1. They staff your account with dedicated experienced people
2. They prove to you they’re expert at briefing the media
Show them the money, and they’ll show you the work
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I’d like to see media agency account managers get some real training so they can actually perform the way they are supposed to.
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Last year MediaScope undertook an ad buyers and ad sellers survey where we aimed to uncover key issues from each party and find some common ground. Ad sellers clearly highlighted receiving better campaign briefs as their standout issue.
However, it goes both ways with buyers and sellers…
Recently I’ve climbed back onto the ad buying bike – after many years in sales, consulting etc. While some publishers were great to deal with – I was shocked at the lack of response and follow-up I received from several publishers. When relating my experience to other ad buyers it seems to be a very common problem. I also see advertising enquiries & opportunities receiving no reply through MediaScope. This raises the question – how many media owners/publishers/sales managers really know how their sales teams and representation agencies are performing at the coal face?
Frustratingly, as many of the very familiar comments in this post demonstrate, the entire client –> buyer –> publisher process is broken on many levels with all segments needing to lift their game.
Thanks Tim (and Ed) – I was feeling refreshed and revived after my Christmas break – till I read this post 🙂
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I love the high and mightiness of some of these posts. If you were a good manager/mentor you wouldn’t be letting your 22yo exec send out a brief without first going through it with them.
Most of the young people I have worked with are driven, enthusiastic and creative and haven’t been ravaged by years of clients knocking back creative ideas to put more money in TV…
Stop taking the easy route and passing the buck and take some responsibility.
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So to sum up what a lot of (clearly agency) commenters are saying, is it’s OK to give a badf brief if the client didn’t brief well either.
In that case, can someone please clarify what the role of a media agency actually is? And particularly what it is that those with strategy and planning roles actually do?
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Great idea!! nothing wrong with inspecting the work you pay the agencies to do, ensuring comprehension as well as ensuring the agency hasnt sat on the brief for a month and then wants a response from media owner in a day!
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I have been selling ad space in media land for a fair few years.
Selling directly to a client is always reassuring as a salesman, because I can be confident that I truly understand the client’s needs. Therefore my proposal will cater to these needs and work the client’s marketing dollars as effectively as possible.
Selling via agencies can be a little different because I am not hearing it from the horses mouth… So when selling to an agency it really comes down to how good they are and how much they truly understand their client’s needs / care for their client / know their client.
I would not say that all agencies pass briefs through to publishers the day before they need the copy… Having said that many still do.
Many agencies still have old fashioned business models reliant on making large revenues from production costs. (Have people read the news about Proctor and Gamble…?)
Over time you learn who are the good agency people and who are not. Generally it comes down to whether the representative of the agency gives a cr@p. It always does. Attitude, care, smarts and hard graft always seperates the cream from the rotten egg’s.
Being copied into your agencies briefs? – Perhaps initially? Or if you are unhappy with results? Or if you have received some feedback from a publisher that briefs are being received last minute?
Another way to assess how good your agency is; is perhaps to ask some of the publishers what they think about your agency? Get a survey out there and see if there are any trends.
Finally, build up an awesome relationship with your agency and manage them. If you are building your dream house, surely you would manage your builder / architect and ensure that everything fits? This should apply to your campaign also.
There are some great agencies out there who get it, who are awesome publisher and client side. Sadly there will always be some that let the rest down. Choose wisely.
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@ Kiss
“I guarantee you will pay more for media purchased through the agency than you would if you baught it direct.”
So would you argue that an agency going to market with $500m of TV spend is at a disadvantage when compared one advertiser someone going to market with $200k? Interesting….
“Not only are the rates inflated by media agencies” Get your agency work audited. I know, an idea akin to quantum theory but hey, it keeps them honest….
“the briefs are rubbish too, they often hinder ideas & strategy”
You must have worked with some shocking agencies – but hey, YOU hired them!!
“particularly where the agency asks for maximum reach”
Erm, dunno where you work, but that’s usually the clients request not the agency….why would an agency ask for maximum reach? what does that even mean? Maximum relevant to what? Maximum would be 100% wouldn’t it? I mean, you can’t get much higher… that’s technically impossible to achieve, but whatever.
“often at the expense of strategically placed spots, and at the expense of frequency and the expense of creative ideas and smartly integrated campaigns”.
Sorry but it sounds like you’re just throwing in as many ‘media words’ as you can muster….
would your ‘strategically placed spots’ be there to increase your 1+ reach? Or are you “strategically” placing them in the same show to build your frequency? What was stated in your objectives to the agency? I mean, that’s YOUR job, not the agency’s…Upon what did you base your so called ‘strategy’? The shows YOU watch?
Oh, and if you want an integrated campaign, maybe don’t just throw your money at ‘strategically placed SPOTS’ Just an idea.
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AMEN!!!! I have been in online digital marketing as a publisher for over 9 years working in the UK, Europe and Australia. And every year the agency teams I deal with seems to get younger and younger with less experience. I have often cringed at the lack of knowledge agency team members have and have thought to myself, if only the client knew.
I know most clients believe they are cutting down on time and therefore costs by having agencies in place however I truly believe it is costing them more in the long run due to poor results off the back of bad handling from the agencies.
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Generally speaking
1. Generally, coordinators carry out the brunt of the administrative work in agencies and are as good as they have been instructed.
2. Generally, wisdom and professionalism come with experience, which in turn comes with age, not beauty, as many agency employers seem to think. Until they are experienced, coordinators’ work should be monitored by a more experienced executive. So yes, I agree with Ed that we need to watch 22- year-olds’ work.
3. Generally all briefs, creative ideas, strategic plans and tactics are approved by the client before being implemented.
4.. Generally it is courteous and politically correct for the coordinator to cc both the agency executive and the client in any correspondence and never to take personal ownership of the content, which should always be on behalf of the client who is footing the bill, even though the agency may own the copyright, something that can be negotiated.
5. Generally, there are too many chieftans and far too few indians at agencies; no wonder the coordinators are overworked and may possibly forget to cc a brief. Cut some slack; they can forward the correspondence and even send addtional or revised information, if need be,
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@agency guy. Don’t be a pillock. My media rates are based on the clients spend and not the agencies spend. I don’t care how many clients you have. And asking me for your “agency rate” becuase you have these mysterious clients gets you laughed out of the room.
A client who commits money to me (either direct or through an agency), is awarded based on their spend. I don’t care if Toyota is a client and they “may” spend some with us.
I reward those people who commit to us. Those who play funny ad agency games and ask for an ad agency rate are virtually doomed to not get the best rate. Most agencies begrudgingly accept that this is a fair deal. After all, I am here to solve the clients problems. Not the agencies problem.
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Having sat through years of media presentations with little value in it … I believe the whole of the media industry needs a re-examination of their practices not just the 22 years olds.
I have lost years of my life listening to recycled so-called “strategy” garbage that always ends in TV, print and OOH recommendations with no reference to any of the thinking.
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@Wild Oscar
Are you genuinely this cynical or just provocative? Having worked in the media and marketing industry for 30 years I have seen companies reap huge benefits from creative campaigns (in hindsight I wish I had marketed myself as powerfully and not spent all my energy and time so completely on them). Do you think worldwide brands such as Coca Cola and Pepsodent would have been at the top of people’s minds without marketing, PR and advertising? They know they have to keep at it or they will be forgotten. If you don’t want to use an agency or a consultant, fine. You then need to hire (and pay) someone with marketing expertise and not only one, because you will need a marketing department one way or another to market your product or service. That person or those persons will lift a substantial salary. Compare fairly. You are not only buying advice, you are buying the resources including the boundless energy of the 22 year old coordinators, if monitored correctly, as well as the facilities and work tools. I have done (and still do) all the running in the corridors, the calls, the research, the work through the night to deliver in the morning, the creative reinvention of the wheel and the endless administrative and production work, using the facilities and work tools that the agencies had to invest in, so I know what I am talking about, do you?
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Age isn’t the issue. It’s about tutoring the people in your team, nurturing them and allowing them to grow.
You will get results from the more “inexperienced” people if you sit down, speak to them and give them the chance to learn. They will be grateful for the tutelage and happy to soak up the knowledge and experience available to them.
As a 22 year old myself, I am sick of hearing about how age produces bad quality work. No matter what age you are or where you work, a second pair of eyes (internally) should be part of the process, as should sign off from the client. Even those at the top of their game don’t always produce perfect work and could benefit from proofing, sharing and checking.
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Well said young person
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As a non-industry person, the message I took away from this thread is that shrinking revenue streams are putting a large amount of stress on the advertising industry.
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this is quite an amusing thread.
anyone who thinks agencies make their money through client fees is naive at best.
agencies make their money be reselling/wholesaling media off the back of group media deals.
Anybody who thinks that 1% on a $30M media spend can afford the team to plan and buy that business, administer it, pay for the admin, support and accounts staff, the building/overheads and still make money is living in the 19th century.
Media agencies biggest and only skill is masking the reselling and repackaging of group deals to clients to make them think they are getting good deals.
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My takeaway from reading this thread is mentoring and managers being responsible for professional development of their teams is a lost art. If things aren’t going right the simple solution is training!
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On the other hand, what about the ideas and strategies media agencies put into ‘good’ briefs for the media suppliers, only for the client in question not taking it and the media selling on to another brand!!!??? That’s OK???
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wow i’m coming late to this thread cause i was busy doing my job along side a client that does thankfully trust our judgement but more importantly treats us as a media partner. Luck has nothing to do with it, there is good and bad on all sides of the fence. I can tell you there is never any excuse for a bad brief no matter where it comes from, and the onus must be on the recipient. If it comes from the client then have an opinion and influence a positive outcome that allows you to do your job. If it comes from the media agency then do the same thing and question it, if you the media owner are being tasked with coming up with ideas and feel like you are being raped and pillaged then surely sitting idley is a cop out. The relationship between all partners needs to be one of mutual respect if lines are being crossed then do what you would do in any relationship and make your expectations clearer…sick of posts that are constantly pointing fingers, take some responsibility people.
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