There are three things a client can do to maximize agency results, one of the most important being to create an environment where traditional and digital agencies build off each other.
As the president of an interactive agency that faces the typical concern of "dealing with" our traditional counterparts, I have come to learn a few things about the best and the worst of managing relationships between interactive and "traditional" partners. (Just by saying the word "traditional" I feel like I am egging them on.)
In the last few weeks, I have had a few relationships flourish to greater heights of client service and a few come to a head, and, since these experiences are fresh, I thought I'd share what I learned.
While interactive-biased analysts debate the question "Can interactive agencies take the lead?" I have found that each partner that a client engages provides leadership in unique ways. Most often the leadership perspective is determined by the client and the people (irrespective of their agency) it trusts. While the client may work with a host of agencies, responsibility for how the relationships play out tends to lie on the client's shoulders.
Where I have found clients to manage successful, collaborative and productive agency relationships, the clients have played three important roles: informing, directing traffic and protecting.
1.) Informing
It is the client's responsibility to communicate issues relating to high level company direction, performance and any needs it might have. Agencies should, of course, proactively demand that information, but clients need to take responsibility here if they want good idea flow from their partners. Additionally, they need to realize that agencies may not always proactively communicate with one another (though they should); the clients should be certain to communicate what other agencies are doing in concept phases, not just when there is a "final finished product."
With one client, which has very collaborative and effective agency relationships, we meet quarterly for marketing summits where we get information from the client and where we meet on both business and social levels. This facilitates our ongoing respectful collaboration. It allows art directors to connect with art directors and the business side to learn where we're all headed.
2.) Directing traffic
Clients should, early on, clearly identify responsibility and expectations for their supporting agencies, but they should also maintain a general concept that "a good idea can come from any agency." But even so, while the ideas may flow, execution should remain within the agencies' respective domains of expertise. In other words, if an idea requires digital execution, then the digital agency should execute with close collaboration from the agency that came up with the idea. Details make a big difference, and experts provide those details.
An example we faced last holiday season was when we had a traditional agency partner come forward with a concept that relied heavily on a digital execution. The agency felt that it had a "viral" campaign idea that it would execute. The end result was a failed minisite that didn't gain exposure or traction simply because the agency missed the basic rules of viral. Our critique was never received and the budget was wasted.
However, in a few other positive relationships we have, clients have facilitated discussions between agencies when a "big idea" has surfaced and the client wants multiple executions. On the creative side, we have seen these ideas get fueled by the variety in disciplines each agency contributes. The brainstorms really are that much more exciting when everyone feels like they can contribute from their areas of expertise.
3.) Protection
Clients need to be wary of degrading the value of their agencies by giving authority to one agency over another. In other words, if the digital agency reports to the traditional in a managerial sense -- rather than from a specific consideration of "brand' or domain expertise, then the relationship's structure places a lesser value on the subordinated digital agency. Therefore, in this flow, information is controlled, ideas are diluted and the client gets a fraction of the creativity that the digital agency would ideally contribute.
I have seen this surface in some of our more negative relationships, where the traditional agency is put in a superior role. Then, if an idea isn't fully understood, the traditional agency refuses to present it to the client. Or, on the digital side, ideas are stifled because the traditional agency intends to "take a crack at" the execution in order to present the idea to the client.
As we can tell from the activity in our industry, everyone wants to broaden their service offering to include the digital or online component. Additionally, every agency likely wants to consume the work of some of their adjacent counterparts if they feel like they could be doing the work and increase their billings. Oddly enough, we see quite a bit of this fight occur within sister shops in almost a sibling rivalry battle.
Agencies need to realize that we're all in the same boat trying to serve the client's needs in the best way we know how. And then, the client needs to understand that this dynamic, especially in tougher economic times, will always exist no matter how much everyone wishes it didn't. While the agencies need to "play nice," the clients need to establish a structure that gets the best out of the experts that they've hired.
Reid Carr is president, Red Door Interactive.