Old World Thinking

We are the direct marketing agency working with the ATL agency on a joint client. (We do the DM and digital). What is obvious is that we have a really difficult relationship with them. We often get emails with sentiments like “We’re the lead agency and these are our comments on your concepts”. It is making it difficult for my team. Any thoughts?

This is not an uncommon situation. Historically, ATL agencies have been the lead agency, others have felt the poor cousin in the client relationship and the client has propagated this. Yet with the need to engage customers different ways, all bets are off as to how to structure a number of agencies to deliver this for a client. Nevertheless, there are still some anachronistic attitudes between agencies. I find that they can often be promoted by the junior members of the team and these can be the most overt, annoying attitudes. Also the fact that you are the digital agency (not sure what this covers) will cause predatory actions by the ATL agency unless checked by the client.

As ever, I would suggest a 3-pronged approach. (well, come on – 3 things are easy to remember than 4!):

1) The one party who can change the dynamic in your relationship most with the other agency is the client. I appreciate that it may not be just one client contact we are talking about. However if you can influence that person/the relevant people, then you will make the greatest change. The senior member on your team needs to see whether the client is sympathetic to helping - by establishing some operating groundrules which will change the status quo. For example the overall campaign brief – do you feed into this? And does the other agency need to take on board your comments? If you can influence the brief you have a better chance of agreeing common ground (and the differences per media) before you ever start any creative.
It may be you have some radical groundwork to do before the client will help you for they see you in a too traditional way. What can you do to show your thinking is worthy of seat at the table? Added-value thought pieces? Name-checking case studies in your field which make the clients and other agencies think about approaching the customer differently? Suggesting taking the lead where your discipline is the dominant one? If the other agency sees the client responding to this differently , they may see you in a different light as well.

2) In addition, your account lead needs to sit with the ATL agency lead and have a one-to-one session which is rooted in an honesty about the perceptions on your side. Recently this has worked with an account I was involved in – particularly as we both knew that the client wanted us to sort out a better collaborative style. Beforehand your team should sit down with her/him and provide him not only with examples but with solutions as to how it can work better. Can you rework the process to work better together? Who are the worst proponents of this snobbish attitude? How can you avoid any territory disputes? (Better to bring this all out then keep it buried.) And to your point, how should feedback on creative concepts be handled?

3) Often when you feel the “poor cousin”, then it is a self-fulfilling prophesy where the “chip on your shoulder” grows bigger with every encounter. How can you, yourselves, break out of this perceptual cycle with the agency? How can you take the lead without making it a territory thing? Invite the team around for a social session (maybe with the client to ensure attendance), create a presentation around a particular area which they would benefit from, make their life easier (eg go to their offices for meetings for a while). Here the point is that you might be creating the situation by your actions – what can you do to change their perceptions?

Hope this helps. A video doing the rounds currently (no doubt promoted by all those “poor cousins”) may be some consolation. More importantly, your team needs to make sure it that its thinking is not from the Stone Age too:

The Last Advertising Agency On Earth from FITC on Vimeo.

360 or Third Degree?

We are being asked by the client to co-fund our agency performance evaluation by a specialist consultancy. I don’t think it is a bad idea but what is the norm? Do you think we should be paying?

Funnily enough I am in a similar situation with a client of mine (maybe the same client?). To answer your first question, my experience is that larger clients apart from some of the FMCG clients will have an agency evaluation process in place but they tend to do it in-house. And it is only when there is an issue, do they bring in an outside specialist.

I think if they expect you to jointly co-fund the evaluation, you should have a say as how it is done and who is used. Now this may cause the client a problem because presumably they want to use a common approach and company across all their agencies. However, surely your money gives you a voice? And consequently the evaluation company should see you as an important stakeholder.

In essence, as long as it is not horrendously expensive, there are more pros for independent evaluation than cons. There is more objectivity (especially when linked to performance bonus) and such consultancies are constantly enhancing their methodologies to evaluate service companies and they also have access to a database of market standards through their work with other agencies and clients.

All these things considered you have to weigh up the cost of co-funding and what it can bring your agency – extra performance bonus, stronger reputation and/or a clearer direction for you to improve your service. Maybe it will also give a few pointers as to how the clients could polish up their act?!

Many Headed Client

Our main client contact is a control freak and won’t allow the agency to have contact with any of their more senior colleagues. This is born out of fear that they will lose control of the work we have been briefed to do, but it’s affecting our ability create a meaningful, trusting and financially rewarding relationship with this client. How can we address this?

You have a guard-dog guarding the senior decision maker like Cerberus guarded Hades – to add a bit classical imagery – something no doubt Rory Sutherland would allude to if he were answering your question but much more eloquently. In various versions, Cerberus is overcome by doped honeycakes, wooed by enchanting music and enslaved in chains. I think with your difficult gatekeeper client I would use stealth tactics rather than overt aggressive behaviour. So rather than state that you are going to go to the senior client as it is your right as a commissioned agency, you need to employ more subtle methods.

Presumably you need to initiate a real relationship with the client before you can start an ongoing dialogue. Yes, this person may have sat on the pitch who appointed you but it doesn’t mean that you necessarily have a relationship with them. So how do you start this? Well back to the doped honeycakes and enchanting music. This is where I believe client hospitality can play a role. First of all do your homework – what is the senior client into rugby, rock music, opera, golf? Then put an invitation together which would appeal to the senior client and your Cerberus client (you do not want this person’s nose out of joint with an exclusive invite just for the senior client). Then put together a team from your side, choose your best shot to seal a connection with the client and make sure you have a few people to cover off your regular client.

If the client does not take up the traditional hospitality route or you feel it is not appropriate, invite them to an interesting seminar or maybe appeal to the professional ego: ask him/her to speak at a joint client seminar held at the agency (attended by other clients) on a theme you know they would be comfortable with.

Once you have sealed a connection, then the excuses for an ongoing dialogue are easier – regular one to one meetings with your senior equivalent, joint agency/client planning meetings, agency performance reviews etc.


PS Talking about Rory Sutherland you may have seen other blogs referencing his TED talk. You have to check it out – it’s a top performance and a great score for the IPA.

D.I.V.O.R.C.E?

We have got to the end of our tether with a client of ours. The relationship is not significant financially at the moment, the work is tedious (as our staff keep reminding us) and they expect a lot for very little. We have a rolling contract with them, so should we just walk away?

This is similar territory to the question about taking on a tobacco account and having the agency split into two by the ethics of the situation. Both situations are undermining the spirit and energy of the agency.

Having been faced with similar clients before and knowing the downward spiral just continues, I would advise cutting your losses and getting out quick and focusing your energies on new, more productive clients. But that is easy for me to say without knowing whether in these times something for the agency is better than nothing and that also you are not contractually in risk.

Based on the assumption that you can get out of the relationship easily and are not gaining anything financially from having the account – which you sort of say in your question – I would make sure beforehand that you consult with the main client contact to see if there is anything that can be fixed. It also allows you to flag that there are problems and that from a business perspective, it is not sustainable. So what you are doing is preparing the client for a potential “it’s not working” conversation later on. Consequently, if you do have that conversation, it will not come out of the blue, it will not appear arrogant (as there is business sense behind it) and you may be able to leave the door open for projects which play to your skills and will work for you financially.

Fact or Friction?

Our account manager and our client are not seeing eye to eye and there is a lot of friction. The client wants to get as much as they can for nothing and the account manager needs to ensure they maximise return on the relationship and protect the agency. Something's got to give or we might lose the account and it is quite big - help!

You have two things going on and it is easy to confuse the two and just solve one, leaving the other to fester. In essence you have a chemistry issue between the account handler and the client but more importantly your client seems to be under a misapprehension about your cost basis. The former might be as a result of the latter but you won’t know until you solve the cost issue.

You are right – something has to give (and it could be the account) so I would suggest that you understand why the client wants to “get as much as they can for nothing”. In my experience, clients like this one either do not appreciate the basis of the remuneration structure (another client created it and is the only one who understands the agreed thinking behind it) or they feel you are too expensive or “ripping them off” so they want to get as much as they can for their – in their minds – overinflated fees. Whichever mindset, you need to take quick action and get this client on side by understanding their perspective. Give them a call and meet up for a chat about the costs, how the projects are going. It may be the opportunity to understand the personality issues, reinforce the cost basis and see if you are coming over as too expensive. Once you know what is really driving the issues, you can then make a decision re your account handler staying on the business.

Start As You Mean To Go On

We seem to be bucking the trend by winning a lot of new business and I am one of the account directors on the new accounts. We need to deliver a number of things before Christmas and yet we are still getting to grips with the new client. What should I be focussing my team on in addition to the work?

I totally understand your situation as we are in a similar position currently. You feel relieved and elated that you have won the pitch and grateful to a higher being that you are not like some of your contemporaries who are experiencing headcount freezes and 9 day weeks. So you are conscious of this when the clients ask you to shave off weeks from the delivery schedule. Nevertheless this should be the honeymoon period. As my wise old mum maintains, you should start as you mean to go on. So what are the key things from any new client induction programme – formal or informal ?

1) Get the money and terms sorted out. This is the one thing that could make or break a new relationship as it is the guiding light for the existence of the account. So despite having to deliver that microsite by the 14th December, make sure confirming the money and terms happens sooner than later. Get your commercial director or head of client services to sort this out with the client. If it is for Purchasing/Procurement, you need to spend some quality time putting your terms and spreadsheets together. If you try to do this on the hop, you could be delaying the essential (so the team is not aware how they should deal financially with the deliverables) or ending up agreeing to the client’s terms (eg billing at end of projects, no travel costs etc) which you normally would want to push back on.


2) Understand that the client is in a different buying mode. When the client is in a pitch they have different evaluative criteria than when they work with you on the day to day. Also some of your day to day client will not have been in the pitch presentations – in fact may not even have wanted a different agency. Therefore do not forget to sell your agency, the team and your preferred working style back into the client now they are in a different mode. This can be done in a working session where you get the client team in, give them a quick run through as to who you are, who their team is, introduce them to some of the key day to day players and discuss how they want to work (eg communication preferences, what worked/did not work with previous agencies, how they want you to collaborate with other agencies etc).

3) Identify the big cheese. Whether you are under time pressure or not, the thing which will affect receipt and approval of your work is the decision-making process at your client’s company. Ask you main client what the approval process is and who she/he will need to consult with/get approval from. If you know this in advance, you can understand the stakeholder management and legislate for the time required, style presentations accordingly and provide the right level of support and information. Such insight can save you so much time and wasted money.

Hope this helps.

You do know there are only are only 14 working days to Christmas? Good luck to us all!

Putting Your Foot Down

I am in charge of a client team - a bunch of intelligent people - but I get hacked off with the way our processes (and those at our client's) get in the way of delivering really innovative thinking. We often use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut - people are not thinking creatively enough. And clients add to the slowness and inertia. What am I doing wrong?

I know what you mean. Sometimes you can get frustrated that things are just too slow on a project or with a client dynamic. That tired old linear thinking is driving the dynosauric pace of change. You want to move fast and take people, whether your team or clients, along with you. You want people to get it and not just say they get it.

My only real advice is to dramatise what they are missing out on and what a fast moving marketplace you are operating in. What you personally need to do is physically demonstrate to those people how innovative thinking can get you to a different space. Or what the downside of staying in the slow lane will mean.

When Amelia Torode quotes the Life Moves Pretty Fast line from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, she is not wrong. What you need to give your clients for a test drive is your equivalent of the 1961 Ferrari 250GT California. Then they may get your urgency for speed or different thinking.

That's why I like Gary Hayes' social media, mobile phone and games counters below. They really bring to life the pace of global "media" change; they make me realise we need to keep adapting ourselves or we will meet a dynosauric demise.

Fun Time

How come a particular client will go to corporate hospitality events of another agency but we can’t manage it?

Yes, this is nightmare territory – the potential for stronger relationships and the equal likelihood of squandered money. The simple answer, to quote a movie line, is that you just ain’t doing it right. The more complicated one takes a bit longer to explain. Actually the fact that the other agency has succeeded shows that the client is on for such entertainment in the first place. You just have to work out how you can make it work for your agency.

First of all, you have to decide what you are trying to get out of your corporate hospitality. Is it stronger day-to-day team relationships, connection with a new senior decision maker or change in agency perceptions? For example, if it is a stronger client-agency team you may want to consider something interactive. This can range from activities like outsourced management survival courses to a few beers and ten-pin bowling. If it is change in agency perceptions, it may be more work-based and be a breakfast or evening seminar for a number of clients where the content is geared around something which the clients will be interested in and a revered outside speaker takes the lead. Getting Rory Sutherland to be his entertaining self may be easier if you are part of WPP or arranging for Robert Peston to speak about the economy may pay off with senior clients you are wishing to impress.

You also need to get the tone and timing right. In my experience, getting clients to come to events has seemed harder over the last few years and with the current “post crunch” pressures in every client organisation, it is becoming even more problematic. So making sure you are designing the right type of event is even more essential. Clients will only come if they really want to come. Therefore see it from your clients’ perspective. Are we talking about a breakfast session of intellectual discussion or a drunken evening culminating with your MD showing off his exclusive party trick of setting fire to his Sambucca-drenched testicles? (I kid you not. I could not make this type of story up!). What would work for your clients? Is the most senior client going to accept/like it? What signals about the agency does it give out to the other clients?

A good friend feels that alcohol is an essential ingredient for corporate entertainment and I tend to agree with him but he goes further by explaining it is a lubricant that enables clients subsequently to award projects to assuage their embarrassing behaviour. Then again he told me the Sambucca story so he moves in slightly different circles. However I do feel you need somebody in your team who is the catalyst for things to happen. They may not always be the most senior but it helps. It may be you....they are the ones without any prompting who get the party started and lead the initially reluctant clients to the dancefloor and get them to enjoy themselves.

Summer entertaining around sports or Christmas parties are laden with timing problems. There are invariably expensive but if you book Goodwood when the Wimbledon semi-finals are on or you schedule your Christmas bash on the night of the main industry awards you may have wasted your money. Time things carefully and consider teaming up with other agencies or suppliers to host a client event (your clients will thank you around Christmas time). Also think about not doing a broadcast event but use the money to do exclusive, discreet things which will have a greater effect. The Claridges Chef’s Table may create a stronger experience with a select client list than the agency team trooping down to Basingstoke to take out the whole marketing department out to the local Café Pasta.

Hope this helps. In the meantime, don’t forget Christmas is around the corner. (and thanks to Holly O’Neil for the photo above).

Mind the Gap

Listening to the radio this week, I was surprised to hear that it has been two decades since the release of When Harry Met Sally. Today sees the UK release of the most recent take on boy-girl relationships – 500 Days of Summer - and it is being vaunted as the 21st century version of the Meg Ryan/Billy Crystal film.

I was reminded of the more traditional “Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus” view on relationships when I went to an AAR/BIMA presentation of some agency/client relationship research. Agencies were portrayed as more “touchy feely”, believing that perceptions could be mainly steered by the state of the relationship and clients were more single-minded in their view that performance was everything. In fact, the widening of this gap was one of the main symptoms of a relationship about to break down.

Maybe 500 Days of Summer will give us a few hints to view the state of the 21st century agency/client relationship as well. The dynamics are becoming more complex as both sides re-engineer the traditional model. And as agency-folk know - if we tinker with our client relationships in the wrong way – adding the equivalent of a different soundtrack, giving it an edgier voiceover, we may end up with a monster:

Game of two sides

Who was your worst client?

It’s funny; when I think of the answer to that question, I am routed back to the first real mistake I made as an account handler, the feeling of pure naive embarrassment and the hell the client made for me as a consequence. I was an account manager with not much production experience. We needed a shot of the incentive for a mailpack and the art director wanted to use a particular photographer. It was a pack shot of an electronic address book and in my inexperience I did not realise he was using the likes of David Bailey for the equivalent of a tube pass photo. In my head now, the cost is £500 but I would like to think that I have priced it up over the years of telling the story to equate to modern day prices but I have to say I am not sure whether it was not really £500! Anyway like a lot of familiar agency stories, time was tight and I could not get client approval because of holidays so I gave the go-ahead and when the client got back, she refused to pay for it and wanted me off the business for such a crass error (so you can see why I am not sure whether it was not actually £500). For years afterwards I was mortified that I had done this, felt under supported by the production manager who should have known better and advised me accordingly - but you know what - I never made another production error like that again – in fact I was more on the ball than most because of it. Looking back on it, whether the cost was £200 or £500, the client was right to kick up a stink about it and I think she was really using it to show to my MD that she felt that the account was under-resourced by not having an account director on her business – which she was also probably right about. Historically, she had been a “hardass client” with a number of my colleagues having rubbed her up the wrong way so my reputation in the agency was not really damaged but at the time I felt like she was my worst client. In effect, how bad your client is depends on where you are standing – whether in the middle of your own personal maelstrom or with perspective some time later. My learning now – as that happened in another severe downturn – would be from a management perspective, ie about making decisions re under-resourcing accounts to make the books balance without considering the risks involved.

The packshot story was my personal experience. A more recent one which I observed but was not personally involved in other than in resourcing decisions was where the client had taken ages with the pitch process, screwed us down too much in the negotiations and, with it being a very big account, let the floodgates open with the number of briefs which had been delayed in the 2-3 month pitch process. Now that was stress! – with everyone working overtime to get off the backfoot, much crying in the toilets on account of the demanding clients and everyone knowing we had bent over backwards too much to make decent enough money. The fault was equally with the agency for agreeing to certain terms but what was missing from the client side was a sense that both the client and agency had to make the relationship work.

So the obvious next question: my best client so far? I know that definitively – one of those moments in your career where the stars align – chemistry with the clients, right people on the business, sense of collaboration, shared objectives and mutual agenda. It all leads to great work and amazing business results. I remember some of the business highlights which we achieved together. I also remember the risks the main client contact took and the way she worked with us in partnership. I also remember the celebrations we had – one Christmas taking over Café Kick and the client and account supervisor taking over the bar and pouring the beers while the caipirinhas were being made late into the night but that’s another story.... In the meantime if anyone needs a pack shot of some foosball players as above, my rates start from £500...

About this blog

Openmike is my idea for a discussion blog about client services and the agency-client relationship in advertising and marketing agencies. I think a lot of what we do in dealing with clients is common-sense psychology but sometimes such principles don't give us all the answers - it is the dynamics of the situation which dictate the outcome. Because of the changing nature of clients and agencies and particularly at this economic time I also think we should be reassessing how we work with clients.

I suppose why I am doing this is because I miss the creative output that writing two books gave me. Putting them together furthered my thinking in the whole area of client-agency relationships. Yet, as anyone has published a business book alongside the day-job will tell you, it is a very large commitment and I have no particular desire to go down that route again for some time. So I like the informality of a blog and the possibility to interact with others on the same wavelength – and maybe with those on different ones.

Also along the way I have been given some good advice. Other times I could have done with some to stop me making the mistakes I have. So in Openmike I will be calling on other people’s experience to answer some of the issues posed - keeping it down to earth and practical, avoiding any academic discourses and having a bit of fun. And I have my own questions – like “why are agencies programmed to make the same mistakes?”, “can we work with clients differently?” and “why do all planners at the moment seem to be called Ben?”

It is for account handlers, working on the day to day of client business and agency management, trying to fathom solutions to client issues.

So there will be a chance to ask questions, look at what’s going on and have a bit of fun at the same time.

I don’t know if people need another blog but here goes. In the meantime enjoy! And let me know your questions.

About me

I am working as an independent consultant; recently I finished a project, helping to set up a new digital agency within the Publicis Groupe and currently I am helping to set up a new account globally for the Ogilvy network.

My credentials? Well, I have worked in client services and senior management in brand, direct and digital agencies - independents and network-owned – at Kitcatt Nohr Digitas, Partners Andrews Aldridge, Rufus Leonard, Wunderman, EHS Brann and Rapier.

My recent experience is in the area of setting up new agency teams and operations, helping agencies define their client offering and developing business. Plus helping clients work better with agencies and develop their marketing activity. I became a freelance consultant through needing the flexibility to move to the US - which I have shelved now.

I am also an awards judge, a visiting lecturer at Warwick Business School and run internal training courses for clients and agencies in the area of briefing and creative evaluation. I have written two books focusing on key practical tips and techniques for the agency-client relationship – Agency Account Handling: Avoiding Blood, Sweat and Tears and the other for clients - Working with Agencies: An Insider's Guide