May the Force be with You...

I am an Account Director with great experience in branding but my company does not fully develop digital comms like we would do print materials. I know the basics but I feel I may be being left behind. I want to expand my digital knowledge so I can advise clients with confidence. Do you have any ideas on the best and most effective way to do this?

Good question. I think everyone - from agency CEOs to junior creatives – are struggling with how to keep up with new developments. It’s just that you may feel like the archetypal teenager wanting to lose their cherry because you think everyone of your peers is doing it and you’re not. The digital world is so massive that it makes people who are dealing less with digital solutions feel as though they are missing out. The reality is you are and you are not – you have realised that you could be doing more but there is so much of it, you need to decide what is relevant to you, your client and your agency.
You work in the area of brand and design and I think those agencies – in contrast to other traditional agencies like advertising agencies - are in a very interesting position with regard to structuring themselves for the new challenges all agencies face. They are less constrained by the old art director/copywriter model and have always dialled up and down different resources like design, copy, film, modelmaking according to the brief. This sort of flexibility is what all agencies will need to show a lot more of.

So what can you do personally? Here are just some initial suggestions:

1) Decide what knowledge is relevant to you in your job and mine this vein of info as it will make most sense to you and should bring business benefits. I would start with your clients’ customers and understand how they are using or could be using online to engage with your client’s brand. I would register for Google Alerts (google.com/alerts) so you can see what is being said or not being said on the web about your clients’s brand. You can get more detailed about this by also registering at moreover.com for sector-specific related breaking news. Technorati allows you to set up RSS feeds for blog-generated info if blogs are used frequently to talk about your client’s products (eg mobile phones). In fact, everyone is talking about social networks as the key for brand engagement. They are definitely part of the story but I thought Seth Godin brought a level headed view in a recent debate about how businesses could use them:



2) Because there is so much out there, you need to treat gaining knowledge in this area like learning a language – you will learn more if you have to learn it and it is in a live environment. Like when you are asking the way in Paris and you have to make sure your French is good enough to be understood to find the railway station, I suggest that you choose something which will help you familiarise yourself with some digital channels and force you to engage with them in quite a granular detail. So take one of your interests and see if you can use the web to help you further it. So if you are into cooking, create a blog using one of the easy platforms like Blogger, Wordpress or Typepad to blog about the results of using new recipes. If you have a company or school reunion use Facebook to organise and record it. If you are a mad-keen cyclist, then use Twitter to tell people of your exploits. My point is that these platforms cannot be seen as normal media as they have changed the way people see the world, interact with each other and engage with brands. So you need to interact them with yourself and a little more deeply than just your average customer. In my case with this blog, I have had to learn about online reputation management, website analytics, social bookmarks, coding issues and many more things. Sure if you had asked me about online reputation management, I could have given you the theory and the mechanisms but now I have a much more practical understanding and the continuing need to keep on top of it. And that is helping me think differently about client problems.

3) There are some many great sources in our industry and beyond that will provoke your thinking, you should consider signing up for RSS feeds from the likes of Adverblog, Seth Godin's blog, Digital Connections and mashable.com. Once you have visited a few they will point you in the directions which may be more your style and taste. Also because you will be finding stuff on the web which you will return for reference, you may want to sign up for a bookmarking site. Somebody recommended me Diigo and I find it really easy to use. I don’t share my bookmarks but it is great way to keep a handle on all that you come across which may be of relevance later down the line.

So that it is my starter guide. The problem you will have is keeping up with all the information but it will be up to you to decide what is relevant. And you have to bear in mind that this sort of thing takes a chunk of time out of your week so you need to legislate it for it. Also as Princess Leia in Family Guy's Blue Harvest found out, there are people out there to help you –with so much talent and inspiration. It just may take a bit of time to open the lines of communication.

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...

The man who mistook his client for an iPhone

We have taken on board a new client and have added in some quite innovative ways of working to our service delivery including using a project management extranet, hotdesking at the clients’ premises and a very collaborative method of developing work. Yet they don’t seem that happy – are clients just getting more demanding and we will never satisfy them?

Yes they are getting more demanding but it may be not be anything to do with you and your agency. Everyone is under the cosh at the moment so business performance may be influencing things. Having just moved from their previous agency, they may have been on the rebound and now realise not everything can be solved by making a new appointment.

Without knowing the details of the relationship I can only surmise what the reasons are but, as you mentioned the innovative ways of working, it reminded me of an experience I am going through at the moment. Having just bought the iPhone 3Gs, I am struggling with somebody’s – not sure whether it lies at the door of Apple or O2 – implementation of innovation and basic functionality. As a mini computer which fits into my pocket, replaces my iPod and allows me to design a new pair of training shoes and subsequently order them online (see below), it is a thing of mesmerising technology and seductive beauty. As a basic phone from which you expect good reception, no dropped calls etc , it sucks.




But if I think about it, before buying I focussed on the new innovative things which I thought would make my life of a higher quality. I did not give reception and dropped calls a second thought. Though when I complained to a friend who had previously told me he had been having problems –he just said “Yeah – welcome to my world” – so I probably had not even wanted to acknowledge it. These are just hygiene factors in today’s world, I thought. I realise now – as I wait 5 minutes for the signal to come back – how wrong I was.

So translating this to your situation you should ask yourself whether the introduction of your new ways has impacted on the basic delivery of what they were expecting. For example, does your working at the client’s office mean that you are not spending enough time at the agency making sure the internal teams are briefed and on track. Has your team getting up to speed with the new client organisation impinged on delivering top quality output straightaway? Also in this age where open source collaboration, beta versions and Agile-type methodologies are now being adapted for other work contexts, was the client aware that operating with your “very collaborative method of developing work” may mean compromises and trade-offs in certain areas? In other words – back to the basics of expectation management – did they know the risks as well as the benefits of signing up to the new way of working?

Probably it is best to assess things now rather than wait for a more formal performance survey. Just a quick email to your client contacts asking what’s working and not working will give you a good understanding and show your main client that you are committed to high standards of service delivery. Then you can see what is the real cause of their disquiet.