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The Wethey Forecast

Why do agencies wait for briefs?  

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Ever wondered why agencies aren’t as creative as they should be? Ever stopped to think why an agency can produce dull work and then make a fantastic pitch? Ever been really impressed by a start-up?It’s not difficult. The client brief / agency response / client feedback scenario is not inspiring – and can lead to a really tedious game of table tennis. Of course a client needs to brief its agencies carefully. Equally the agency has to be disciplined in the way it develops creative work in response. But that shouldn’t mean that the agency ONLY works reactively. There’s no rule that says that agencies can’t be proactive. You can’t win a pitch unless you are – however tight the brief. And start-ups have so little business to begin with that they create all sorts of ideas on spec. I blame the wretched people hours remuneration system. Because time sheets are the basis of agency charging, we have fallen into the trap of believing that unbillable hours are a crime. Most of the best ideas in history were thought up by clever people in their own time. Very few were commissioned to order.  If you come up with a really brilliant creative idea, find someone to sell it to. Might be a client. Might be a prospect you’re pitching to. Might be a company or an individual you’ve never met. Think about it, and get selling. The payback will come later. 
Published Mar 25 2008, 03:33 PM by David Wethey

Comments

by Peter Riley
March 26, 2008 11:26 AM
 
It's a fair point and something my agency has been doing from year one (I've never lost the ingenuous enthusiasm of a start-up). We have an internal process where we remind ourselves we are consumers and ask ourselves what our favourite brands should be doing to please us. I'd like to say that prospects admire our free thinking and our bold consumer insights, but in order to wrestle an opportunity away from an incumbent, we need to be different, often radical. Whilst most clients will profess to admire different and radical thinking, it's often not that simple. Take mobile marketing as an example. I am telling anyone that will listen that 2008 is the year of mobile (we're on our third mobile campaign of the year). Every client is interested: they have to be, otherwise they think they'll fall behind. But they're often not ready for the leap into new ideas, such as mobile marketing. Granted, part of the agency's job is to guide clients into the unknown, but prospects, in my experience, prefer to be guided by their own agencies, who they know and trust. My point is, your comments are valid and welcome, but I'd like to qualify them by challenging prospects (and clients) to be more receptive to strangers at the door.
 
 
by charlie robertson
March 26, 2008 11:32 AM
 
A potential recipe for anarchy. Unfocused creativity - anyone can do that and many do. Maybe need to make the distinction between Briefs - which are often dull in themselves and Briefings - which need to be inspiring. Bit of stimulus on the commissioning process: 'Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling' now in paperback
 
 
by Rory Sutherland
March 26, 2008 2:35 PM
 
Ahem. The much-loved (by planners) story about Michaelangelo and the Sistine ceiling, er, isn't true. The pope did had some idea of what he wanted, but M didn't like the idea and insisted on doing his own thing instead. I quote: "Michelangelo was originally commissioned to paint only 12 figures, the Apostles. He turned down the commission because he saw himself as a sculptor, not a painter. The Pope offered to allow Michelangelo to paint biblical scenes of his own choice as a compromise. When the work was finished there were more than 300. His figures showed the creation, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and the Great Flood." Personally, as a Protestant, I think it is a bad response to a bad brief - woefully over-elaborate and self-indulgent. And the media choice is appalling - people look at walls not ceilings.
 
 
by shay boyd
March 26, 2008 3:35 PM
 
Having had a foot in both camps,painter and foreman, I think there are ways to sell your agencies creative nous,but your ability to generate great ideas will only be put to the test via a focused challenge,or brief? With client imput and deeper insight. But I'm all for showing off and always looking for answers. Shay Boyd MD Clay London
 
 
by Susanna Simpson
March 26, 2008 9:09 PM
 
I agree the payback does come later. My agency pitches proactive ideas to our clients every month. Also people usually always buy from trusted relationships unless they have broken down. That's how business works. As a fellow agency owner I have always found our best clients and our greatest work comes from long term trusted relationships, but they all started somewhere...its about building the business for the long term. Don't give up. I just won a new client last week having had my first meeting with them in 2003!! It pays to keep in touch and chip away, at some stage they will let you in. In my experience the best way to start those often hard to find new relationships is to proactively identify a business issue that a client is facing and go in with an idea that addresses it. After all isn't that the point of what we all do?
 
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The Wethey Forecast

Musings from Agency Assessments' Chairman on agencies, clients and the business of advertising
 

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David Wethey

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Member since: 03 Jun 2008

Last login: 28 Jan 2009

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