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THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY OF AGENCY COLLABORATION
Anyone with half an eye on the agency business over the last three years has seen a trend: collaboration requests from clients.
We’ve been participating in agency collaborations for more than a few years and have been asked to work with as many as six different agencies from across the country at one time. We’ve led agency collaborations and we’ve been led, both successfully and unsuccessfully. Following are some of the things we’ve learned:
The Good
1. Better Ideas: It’s amazing how good ideas can become when agencies have to present them to each other and are willing to build upon each other’s ideas, regardless of owner.
2. Better Integration: It’s typical for agencies from different disciplines (digital, PR, CRM, Shopper, Consumer, etc.) to be asked to collaborate on a project. Having each discipline work together from the beginning brings an idea to life.
Net: Better ideas and better integration are, of course, at the heart of why clients demand agency collaboration. Agencies should welcome it. It can make the work better.
The Bad
1. Inefficiency: The bigger the problem, the more likely it is to include more people. Combine that with competitive agency people and their paranoia and the result can soon become “too many, too quickly.” In reality, the concept of including more people is fundamentally more about defending turf than it is about bringing the best ideas. In addition, the amount of coordination, scheduling, conference calls, creative reviews, etc., etc., just naturally takes more time and is more difficult to organize.
2. No Strength In Numbers: One or two people from each agency typically do all the talking, so why do we need the Group Account Director, Account Supervisor, Copywriter, AE, Junior Copywriter, Art Director, Associate Creative Director and a Strategist from each agency in the room?
3. Expense: Read above.
Net: The client should clearly define agency roles, responsibilities and leadership, then the agencies should work out the best way to meet expectations.
The Ugly
1. Agency Ego: “My idea is better than your idea” is the most unattractive trait in our business. What’s been interesting is that it’s not only the Creative Directors who are campaigning for their ideas. Account leads and even agency principals can be the most ego-driven, win-at-all-costs people in the room.
Net: Agencies must leave their egos at the door. You’ll win some and you’ll lose some, but you will get credit for all of them.
The reality of agency collaboration is here. If you still don’t want to believe it, then check out this video. It’s Alex Bogusky and Ty Montague from J. Walter Thompson talking about their collaboration on Microsoft. For crying out loud, if Crispin is cool with agency collaboration, then the rest of us can figure out a way to make it work. Unless, of course, “your ideas are better than their ideas.”
Take note from what we’ve learned. At the end of the day, it can make agencies an even greater value to clients, and it just might save everyone’s sanity.
Posted
by Chris Marshall, August 23, 2010 at 4:21 PM | Add a Comment
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU STOP TRYING TO BE ALL THINGS TO ALL PEOPLE? YOU WIN.
I just came across this ad campaign today and am loving every minute of it. I love the fact that Piperlime is taking a stand against sneakers, sweatpants and flip flops.
But what I love most is apparently, according to this, they understand the ramifications of taking such a stand. They know that some people simply aren't going to like it.
And they've decided that's ok.
Apparently Piperlime understands that it's better for some to love you and some to hate you than everybody to feel indifferent about you.
So, so true. I think this gets to the heart of why I'm so disenchanted with segmentations. Segmenting your market is fine, but you inevitably start trying to sell to multiple segments and you end up standing for nothing. Many marketers fall into this trap of thinking that selling to more segments = more sales = good. I love it when I see brands take a stand.
Posted
by Kent, August 19, 2010 at 9:38 AM | Suggest Removal
On a personal note (and even though I'm slightly older than the target audience according to the article), this campaign completely appeals to me as a woman. I did the lazy trends in college (yes, I'm sure I even went out in public in pajama pants) and have tried to put the lazy days behind me -- even when running to Starbucks or Home Depot. So I'm looking for fashionable ways to be put together and stylish while still enjoying the practicality of comfort. Many of these campaigns are simply about giving women ideas for their wardrobe. I often see outfits that don't quite fit the workplace (too trendy) or seem over the top for the weekends (too hoochie). I think Piperlime nailed this campaign as the shots include outfits that are just a little too fun for work, but just right for running around town.
And to echo the blogger's sentiments, the opposite of love isn't hate...it's apathy. I'm all about a little passion these days. Even if we're only talking shoes.
Posted
by Sarah, August 21, 2010 at 6:37 AM | Suggest Removal
WHEN THESE PEOPLE GET MAD, IT MAKES ME WANT TO PUNCH SOMEBODY.
Now that we’ve had a couple of days to react to the Steven Slater/JetBlue story, I went in search of more examples of people going off on our fellow human beings. The examples are out there and they are plentiful. Here are just a couple.
- Slater gets mad at some passengers and makes his sliding, beer-in-hand exit. Oh, after he takes to the intercom and drops a few F-bombs.
- Back in January, right here in KC, Alesha McMullen was unhappy with her Happy Meal and did thousands of dollars of damage to cash registers and a drink dispenser. All over a $1.59 sandwich.
- Just a few days ago, the video of yet another woman going ballistic over her chicken McNuggets went viral. After smacking the worker in the face a couple times, she threw something through the drive through window. You know, just to make sure she expressed her anger fully.
- Finally, I dug up a story about a man named Paul Blankfield who punched the father of an autistic child during a dinner outing at The Olive Garden. I guess the child was making too much noise and the breadsticks weren't coming out fast enough.
All this anger and fisticuffs have got me to wondering – are we getting angrier, or are there simply more places and ways for us to see people when they lose control and lash out?
Years ago when somebody went off in a McDonald’s, only the corporation and the cops knew about it. Now, it goes up on YouTube and the world sees it.
We all know that people are frustrated with the economy, the government and their lives. It seems they’re equally frustrated (or even more) with each other. There’s a lot of vitriol out there and ever increasingly, that vitriol is turning to violence.
Maybe being so in touch (thanks to technology) has made it lots easier for us to get on each other’s nerves. I also wonder if watching so much reality TV – where everyone seems to overreact to everything – has ushered in the same kinds of overreaction into our real lives.
The problem is, on TV, that kind of drama gets you famous. In life, it just gets you arrested.
Posted
by Tug McTighe, August 16, 2010 at 10:00 AM | Add a Comment
Think LOLcats were created by internet nerds in the early 2000's? WRONG. Pairing goofy images of felines with text to induce laughter has been around for over 100 years. This particular image was taken by portrait photographer Harry Pointer as part of a series entitled Carte De Visite in 1905.
Why do I care? Because this is just one more reminder that, as much as I'd like to think otherwise, the fact is that most of my ideas are retreads or spin-offs of something that's been done before. And I think, three years into my career, I've finally come to terms with it.
I don't know whether to feel relieved or saddened.
Posted
by Nick Kinney, August 11, 2010 at 11:32 AM | Add a Comment
I may be late to this party but I don't care: This is amazing. The thesis as put forth by thefuntheory.com:
This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people’s behaviour for the better. Be it for yourself, for the environment, or for something entirely different, the only thing that matters is that it’s change for the better.
As proven by the piano/stairs video, they got it totally right. Add the fact that they also have a contest to crowdsource more ideas that prove their thesis, with videos and voting and such and the whole thing goes from great to simply brilliant. Seriously.
My questions:
1. How do we get our clients to sponsor this kind of "initiative"? There's clearly a shocking amount of earned media here, but, as you guys know, that's really difficult to pin an ROI onto.
2. Are some clients just too unwilling to greenlight a project like this? And if so, is there any way to get them to change their thinking?
3. What can you do that takes a non-advertising idea and turns it into a way to get your clients earned media and, dare I say, viral attention?
In all, I think this is about the most awesome thing I've seen in awhile. What do you guys think?
Thought-provoking questions, Tug. I think that even though the VW logo is simple and not overly dominant, it is very visible and they are clearly claiming ownership of the site, and by inference, all the incredible ideas. When you click the VW logo you go to the car site and the commercial side kicks in. That's ROI. And it's measurable - how many clicks from thefuntheory.com end up searching for a dealer or building a virtual car or spending X-minutes on the car site? That's all measurable. The one thing that's odd to me is when you click the VW logo on thefuntheory.com (which is all English) you go directly to the Swedish VW site. Why take that traffic to the volkswagon.se site (Sweden??? maybe that's where the concept originated). If they took the traffic to the global volkswagon.com site and let people pick their own language it seems like the ROI could potentially be significantly better. That's one of those "by changing this one button, we could..." things.
There is a great piece on ReadWriteWeb about the current Old Spice campaign from Wieden + Kennedy featuring "the man your man could smell like" and their dizzyingly fast production of nearly 200 web videos in two days earlier this week. Usually these stories are interesting to me in an inside-baseball kind of way, but one long quote in particular from Iain Tait, the Global Interactive Creative Director at W+K, stood out:
"In the room there are two social media guys and a tech guy who built a system pulling in comments from around the web all together in real time,"
"We're looking at who's written those comments, what their influence is and what comments have the most potential for helping us create new content. The social media guys and script writers are collaborating to make that call in real time. We have people shooting and we're editing it as it happens. Then the social media guys are looking at how to get that back out around the web...in real time."
"The videos aren't being posted in chronological order immediately after the Tweets and comments they are in reply to. They get moved up and down a queue in a deliberate, orchestrated, if very fast way."
There is a lot more investment going on in making this campaign work in social media channels than just "make it edgy and throw it on the web then wait for the hits to come." Great creative is always the foundation, but this particular effort is being directed by a very deliberate social media methodology choosing who to respond to, backed up with dedicated technology to specifically identify how the campaign is behaving in real-time. W+K put some real resources behind this effort, and it is paying off.
More importantly, in a jittery advertising climate, when many clients are questioning the value of their marketing partners, W+K is demonstrating the way smart, innovative ad agencies can prove their value.
Posted
by David Unekis, July 15, 2010 at 1:01 PM | Add a Comment
I was so impressed today with a marketing effort by a local computer shop. They held a free "e-cycling" event at their store today, allowing local residents to drop off old electronics. I was skeptical at first. As you started unloading things, they asked if you would provide some basic information for their records - name, phone number, and then if you were a small business owner. Big red flag. But here's where they impressed me. They preemptively assuaged my fears by letting me know it was for their records and that the information would not be sold or used for marketing purposes. The reason for asking about small business ownership was simply so they could invite the person back to the store some time to check them out. Then, as you were unloading your old things, they explained how the material would be recycled and wouldn't just be taken to the dump. This is a great example of how taking a little time to tell the story behind something builds credibility. It showed me they think ahead and are knowledgeable about what they were doing. Plus, they just really seemed to enjoy what they were doing. After that one experience, I will check them out first if I need help with my computer.
Value (free drop-off) + cultural relevance (recycling) + passion = adding to my consideration set.
Posted
by Kent Stones, July 10, 2010 at 12:57 PM | Add a Comment
I was sitting at my desk last night when I heard a scream from my daughter's room, followed by a slamming door and laughter. As she entered my office, I noticed she was holding her phone in front of her face, laughing and talking as she pointed it toward me. There on the phone's screen was a live video feed of her friend who she hadn't seen in a while (I gave a friendly wave). The quality was, quite simply, mind-blowing. Full screen, colorful and smooth. She bounded downstairs to have her friend say hi to my wife, then it was back upstairs to her room to finish the conversation.
So what's the big deal about this? This was the Jetson's. It wasn't some little postage-sized, jerky image that never matched the audio that cuts in and out. This was smooth, colorful video with audio that had no noticeable lag. I did absolutely nothing to prepare our wireless network or phones to enable it. And I would have NEVER, EVER imagined it was as immersive or that big of a deal had I not seen my daughter use it. I thought the iPhone's video calling feature was interesting but not that big a deal. I was wrong. I just saw the future of communication and am once again reminded not to judge something until I've lived or experienced it myself.
Posted
by Kent Stones, June 25, 2010 at 2:43 PM | Add a Comment
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