Selecting a Creative Marketing Agency: Patrick Goodness
The process for selecting a marketing agency to represent your company is much like the search for a new car. The search starts by ascertaining your needs, followed by a hunt for the agency that will best meet those needs. It all seems rather simple and straightforward. But today, the search for a marketing agency is unnecessarily fraught with hundreds of other considerations that distract clients from seeing through the fuzzy haze to the core of an agency’s offerings.
Consider for a moment the myriad service offerings that many agencies offer today. Extranet sites, database systems, lead management systems and a hundred other “systems” have become commonplace offerings by most advertising agency giants. Even small agencies have succumbed to the temptation to offer these extra service offerings as a way to boost margins and impress potential clients. What’s wrong with offering all of these diverse services? Nothing at all…as long as these services aren’t a purposeful diversion to shift a potential client’s attention away from an agency’s competency with the basics of advertising.
As an owner of a small marketing / advertising agency with an exceptional creative team, I am consistently edified to learn that our clients come back to us time and again for our creative approach to advertising. While we still faithfully retain our loyal clients that have come to trust our work, we’ve recently seen a notable shift in the client-agency dialogue as we continue to pitch new business. Most potential clients still “ooh” and “aah” over our ads, brochures and websites, but only recently we find ourselves hearing a new phrase that has caught us entirely by surprise. It goes something like this. “Of all the agencies we’ve considered, your creative development is far and away the best. BUT… we’ve decided to go with another agency that offers “insert management or database service here.”
In follow-up conversations with the client, we inevitably learn that the client was not impressed with the creative marketing solutions presented by the “winning” agency, but was won over by the barrage of services that promised to revolutionize their processes. It has generally been part of my “pick yourself up” practice to have a good chuckle, and then move on to greener pastures. But lately, this trend has grown to epidemic proportions. My chuckle isn’t what it used to be.
These days, clients are shopping for marketing agencies in a whole new way. Creativity used to be the yardstick by which all agencies were measured. Only the best creative agencies rose to the top and earned the business. The rest scuttled about for the crumbs left over by the biggest and the best. Today, an agency’s creative development is still measured, but in an industry rife with creative mediocrity,
many “creativity challenged” agencies still get the business because they have successfully convinced their clients that creativity matters less than the systems they peddle.
Allow me to share a story that illustrates this point. My agency was one of three agencies invited to pitch a significant regional account. Before our presentation we learned that this company already had an internet database system in place and a number of other management software solutions, all of which satisfied their needs. They were looking for an agency to impress them with strong creative
advertising concepts. Great! We made our presentation and impressed them with our creative concepts for their business. Confident in our capabilities, we walked away with some assurance that ouragency would occupy the top spot. It was weeks later however when we learned that despite our firstrate creative concepts, sparkling commendations, and impeccable service, another agency had been
chosen because they offered a promising database management system. When I inquired if the client had in fact been looking for another database management system…they replied that they had not been looking. At that point, it became apparent that this company had lost its way, and had been persuaded to forsake its primary objective in place of a system it did not need or even want.
Then it hit me.
If these same people shopped for cars the same way they shop for a marketing agency, the car they eventually choose would never be able to leave the lot. You see, if an agency isn’t creative, nothing else matters. It’s like looking at two different cars. One runs great. The other car doesn’t have an engine at all, but it has a great 8-speaker stereo. The savvy shopper would of course purchase the car that runs well, and add the stereo later. But today, many clients are so caught up with the sound of the stereo that they forget to check to see if the car will actually run.
Quite simply, creativity is the engine that drives the message. Without creative marketing solutions that grab attention, none of the bells and whistles will ever matter. What good is a database management system, when there are no names in the database to manage? You get the picture.
There is an upside to a downturn in the economy. While many choose only to see the doom and gloom of a slow market, this necessary lull encourages us to get back to basics. It gives us pause to review the successes of truly great brands, and encourages you to chart an ambitious course for your company… for a time in the not too distant future when the creative positioning of your brand will make the difference between success and failure.
It’s time for clients to be certain that the bells and whistles touted by so many agencies don’t come at the expense of truly creative marketing solutions. Just remember that you won’t get their business if you can’t get their attention.
So, if you’re in the market for a new marketing agency, make sure you check under the hood to see the creative engine. And if you decide that the bells and whistles are more important than the basics of sound creative marketing…just turn up the stereo on your new car and close your eyes.
