Ask any brand marketer and they'll tell you. One of the most critical components of a successful integrated marketing campaign is good collaboration among agency partners: Creative, Media, Interactive, Sales Promotion, Packaging, Public Relations-- everyone has a stake in making the integration process work. From Nike to Target to HP: this isn't just an exception, it's the rule.
This is not easy stuff for most agencies-- particularly the big guys above the line.
But what's amazing is how responsible marketers feel their agencies are for the failure of collaboration simply to happen at the drop of a conference call. Think about it. For decades, advertisers have conducted lengthy pitches for their business-- pitting holding company against holding company, agency against agency, boutiques against big guys, and media commissions against creative and production fees. Careers are made or lost, jobs kept or sacrificed, offices opened or closed-- all as a result of who won or lost at the outcome of the pitch.
It is years of this competitive dynamic that make an agency person's skin thick: the pressure to win at all costs and keep or walk away with the account.
This Pavlovian conditioning of agency versus agency competitive spirit is so deeply embedded that I dare say it becomes a part of the very fabric of every agency person's DNA. Then, suddenly -- like it's no big deal -- along comes a mandate for Integrated Communications and the marketer demands immediate and close collaboration among their roster agencies.
And the marketers wonder why, after the first two meetings, they're left scratching their heads saying, "I just can't understand why these agency people have such a tough time collaborating with each other…"
Duh.
I'm not suggesting that it should be easy for agencies just to shut up and collaborate. It's not.
Big ideas and big account wins don't come from small egos. They come from dynamic individuals and creative cultures with enormous largesse-- who aren't accustomed to sharing the stage with anybody with media clout or an awards chest smaller than their own.
What I am suggesting is that the old model is broken, and fragmentation and consumer control have taken over. So as "agency partners," we had better find a way to collaborate… or our clients will determine our future before we do.
Will we progress or just force ourselves to play nice?
The harsh truth is, as agency stewards, we don't own much of the client relationship anymore.
We don't own the strategy-- the marketing consultants have challenged us for a legitimate seat there.
We don't own the consumer insight-- their behavior is moving too fast for us to hold still.
We think we still own the creative idea, but our ideas are only as good as the numbers the user-generated ad for the same product is pulling on YouTube this week.
And we don't own the media. That's long since been given over to the consumer.
So what do we do now?
We collaborate. Not because we have to… but because we should want to. Why? The results of our work are better when we check our egos at the door. We don't have the lock on creative ownership we thought we did-- no matter how creative our agency name, our title, the number of times we've shot with Joe Pytka or the number of awards we've won.
The truth is that there are great ideas coming out of agencies of all sizes-- way below the line. And soon those little agencies are coming to a conference room table near you. Combine that with the velocity of change that players like Google and Yahoo! are bringing to the traditional paid-for advertising model and the TV-centric creative agencies are left with a giant above the line wake-up call.
For what it's worth, my two cents are, "Let go." Open minds will open other minds.
Maybe the package design gang knows something you don't. Maybe those interactive kids really aren't kids. Maybe you should do more than just say "hi" to those media people in the elevator. (They're incredibly smart.) And just maybe collaborating with everyone you can find will make your own big idea…. even bigger.
Alan Schulman is chief creative officer for Brand New World. Read full bio.
