Responding to Goodby: Deeper client knowledge gives better results
Earlier this week advertising legend Jeff Goodby told a conference agencies should ‘unlearn’ everything they know about clients. Here Kate Smither argues deeper business knowledge displayed by agencies creates better marketing results.
If advertising agencies are not bringing new thinking to their clients then they are really not doing their job and the industry will die. In fact the industry should die.
But I don’t think our ability to think differently is limited by our knowledge of clients’ businesses. The brilliance of advertising is that we can put forward new thinking and unique ideas that will actually drive business results. The brilliance of advertising is not trying to “unlearn” everything in order to keep that thinking pure and fresh.
Goodby
Yes and no.
Knowing enough about the business, category and market is important but lest we forget – the agency’s main job is to know/anticipate consumer behaviour, the context/culture in which it occurs and what to do to influence that behaviour for specific commercial ends.
This is a well smart response to the big man. Kate nails it Of course agencies will never know clients’ businesses as well as clients but they have the ability to bring brilliant thinking to the table in areas clients would never dream of. Great ideas based on deep understanding of their clients’ businesses.
As a client I would never recommend going down Goodby’s unlearning approach. I never expect an agency to know more about my business than me or our team but as Eaon says its its essential the agency understands our business, market , category etc.
At a painful pitch a few years ago we had finally got down to a tight shortlist with one agency so far ahead we all thought it was a done deal. Then in the final presentation with our MD and other directors the favoured agency wheeled out the ECD who had adopted Goodby’s unlearning approach a little too much in that it was clear he had no idea what he was talking about, the pitch was an utter disaster and the end for the agency.
Just because an agency is deeply ingrained in a business it should never stop them from searching for fresh ideas/approaches. If any agency isn’t providing fresh ideas its time to find a new agency I think the Whatif innovation agency nailed it with their 4R’s framework for searching for new ideas and jumping streams.
If an agency comes up with something fresh the important thing is ‘the journey’ they take the client on so that they understand why they have come up with the idea/approach and buy into it.
Was this op-ed written as a response to Goodby’s speech, or responding to an article about the speech?
It reads like the latter.