The agency and client relationship can be love/hate. Maxine-Laurie Marshall allows both sides to vent their frustrations
Life is a game of two halves, you get the good guys and the bad guys, you’re right or you’re wrong, you’re loved or loathed. Obviously you always fall in to the former categories and those who are not on your team, fall in to the latter categories. At least this is how many client-side marketers and agencies see themselves.
I am using my editorial license to exaggerate slightly, I know some agency/client teams have a harmonious relationship. However, I also know there are consistent gripes felt by one side towards the other. Often at B2B Marketing we unintentionally play middle man as we speak to both agencies and clients, so it made sense to make that role official this month and ask both sides to submit problems they have when they work together.
Pitching
It is no surprise the main issue the agencies came up with was pitching. It’s incredibly resource intensive and agencies often see it as ‘idea sweeping’. However, many marketers see the process as vital in choosing the right partner. Simon Carter, executive director of marketing at Fujitsu, echoes this: “When I take on a marketing agency they are about to become an extension of my team – so I need to know how they think, how they understand my business, and how we will work together. Pitching allows me to try and understand that.”
Client-side marketers struggle to come up with an alternative to pitching that still allows them to see how an agency would approach their business challenges. Paige O’Neill, CMO at SDL, who started her career on the agency side, agrees pitches are time intensive but says: “I continue to think they are a critical part of the selection process that can’t easily be skipped.” She continues by explaining after a pitch: “I come away with a very firm sense of the talent level of individuals, the extent of agency interest in the business, the potential for creativity on the account, the level of experience an agency has on particular areas, and the unique differences that set various agencies apart. And – perhaps most importantly – whether or not there is a ‘fit’ from an approach and personality standpoint.” She is, however, open to other ways of getting these across but asserts that a face-to-face meeting is critical.
While the acknowledgement from clients that the process is intensive may offer hope for agencies, client-side marketers seem to agree that this process should not be paid for. Both Carter and O’Neill cite it as a cost of doing business for the agencies. If agencies can unite and all decide to operate under the same rules and conditions, perhaps they could change the pitch process, while still bearing in mind marketers’ desire to meet face-to-face.
Bad briefs
If the first step of getting over a problem is admitting you have a problem, then I feel like we’re in a pretty good position to come to a mutually beneficial conclusion with the next two agency gripes. Many agencies cited receiving bad briefs as a recurring issue. There were tales of briefs lacking detail so it was impossible to know what the client wanted and briefs changing half-way through a project. And the clients put their hands up in full admission while offering some insight into why they struggle with brief writing and what agencies can do to help.
Carter says: “The client trusts that the agency will get what they mean, and the agency is confident in their own abilities and that they will deliver irrespective. The reality is usually the opposite. Clients also get confused about what is expected. They may not want to ‘give too much away’ in a brief, in a misguided view that it is for the agency to be creative.”
For O’Neill, time is the main issue, saying: “No one is wading through pages and pages of documents anymore, so of course no one wants to take the time to write them.”
Looking towards a solution Phil Vella, CMO at Gumtree, thinks agencies can be more proactive in offering guidance. “Guidance may often be required but agencies should not neglect the onus on them to communicate what they need from a brief or clarifying certain aspects within a brief. Often it is this lack of communication (from both sides) that leads to work being presented that is out of kilter with what the client wants.”
Vella also suggests the format in which the brief is received (email, face-to-face or over the phone) should be dictated by agencies as they are tasked with interpreting it, but then the client should agree with what they specify. After all, it’s the least the client can do as it’s in their interest to satisfy the agency’s needs. A poor brief will often lead to poor work.
Quick and free
The final gripe agencies had, and marketers admitted to, was clients’ failure to understand the value and the time work takes. Too often, marketers will assume a piece of work or an amend is a quick job, and ‘quick’ easily seems to translate into ‘quick and free’ in the minds of many marketers, much to the frustration of the agencies.
“Sure we’ve all been guilty of that,” admits O’Neill. Vella also admits guilt here, he suggests this issue ties in with the previous point about bad briefs: “The most common reason for this is often failure to brief properly (from the client side) and also scope work adequately (from the agency side). This is most evident in digital work where timeframes, scale and scope can get away from less experienced practitioners who don’t understand the value of good project management. The client will always have the attitude that they’re paying the bills but constant changes cut into agency margins. Setting expectations and understanding the nature of a piece of work from the outset is key to avoiding these situations.”
This gripe may have been suffered in silence until now by many agencies as Carter suggests many fear the repercussions of saying something and swallow the costs. He says: “My preference – as a client – is that the agency has built some expected ‘rework late in the game’ into their original proposal, so when the client asks for it, while they might roll their eyes, they know they have time built in, and margin too.”
It pays to be honest
The agencies have had their say, now it’s time for the marketers to reveal their frustrations. Honesty is the best policy, right? It is according to client-side marketers who want their agencies to tell it how it is. Agencies have the expertise marketers desire, so should be upfront in saying when current activity isn’t up to scratch. Surprisingly, marketers also felt agencies presented ‘safe’ ideas and gave the client what they assumed they would want rather than testing their thinking with something ‘off the wall’.
Offering an explanation into why this happens, Henry Braithwaite, operations director at MarketMakers, says: “Agencies are reluctant to start off on a negative note by telling their new client that the idea won’t work. It’s understandable, but it’s not acceptable.” He admits it’s an uncomfortable conversation but insists it will make for the right result and future relationship.
As far as addressing the ‘playing it safe’ claim, Sarah Moloney, client services director at Nelson Bostock Communications, says: “Imaginative, creative campaigns can be sold and bought, developed and executed, providing clients can sell in what success will look like to internal stakeholders.” So perhaps clients need to do more work internally to prep colleagues for a campaign that doesn’t play it safe before agencies can deliver it.
Frenemies
There’s no need to see every other agency as ‘the enemy’ who you must be better than. Marketers said that the failure to join up with other agencies is an issue. Most agencies also recognised this trait in themselves but insisted they were working on changing it.
Drew Nicholson, CEO of OgilvyOne DNX, highlights the main problem: “All agencies need to ‘play nice’ together. As soon as one agency in the roster breaks ranks to land grab it gets tricky.” Marketers can help this, as Julie Clare, CEO of Clear B2B Marketing & PR advises: “Clients must learn not to play agencies off against each other as that doesn’t help teamwork and honesty.” Kate Cox, CEO of Bray Leino, also believes it is possible for agencies to work effectively together but believes clients can help this happen by: “Being clear about what they expect from agencies and rewarding them appropriately in order to avoid infighting.”
Hitting on another pertinent point that sometimes agencies will try to be everything to everyone and find it difficult to recognise some parts of the campaign may be best left to other agencies, Braithwaite says: “Our most successful clients run agency days where PR, digital and direct agencies get together to discuss plans, pool resource and come up with the best result for the client.”
Reporting
Last on the list of gripes about agencies was their tendency not to report quickly or often enough. Clients are under pressure to show progress and they often need to show that progress quickly. An agency is an extension of a marketer’s inhouse team, marketers communicate with their teams daily, so should the same apply for their agencies?
Clare says: “This can often be the agency’s fault because they will over promise in the first instance.”
However, the good news is the agencies all agreed times have changed and the days of six month or annual reviews have gone. Malone says: “Agencies can’t rigidly plan for reporting anymore, instead they need to discuss how to best present results back to their clients and allow for greater reporting flexibility in any scope of work.”
Braithwaite agrees and believes the reporting should be confirmed when the initial contract is signed. But whose responsibility is it? While not receiving reports when they want or need them may frustrate marketers, they are the ones who need them so the onus should be on them to ensure the agencies know when and how often reports are expected.
Offering advice to help clients get the service they want, Clare says: “Clients need to set internal expectations regarding progress, then share how the report will be used with their agency. This will enable the agency to provide the most relevant information, as reporting for reporting’s sake can be costly for the client.”
More open communication is a big part of overcoming most of the problems listed. If something annoys you but you don’t ever say anything, the fault transfers to you for not doing anything about it. Carter concludes by offering advice to both agency and client-side marketers. “I would encourage all junior client marketers to spend some time on secondment with their agency, to better understand what it is like to stand in the feet of the agency. You can only really do this at the start of your career, but actually this is when it should be done most, as you get to learn most as your career grows from there. The same is also true for young agency people – they should spend time as a client, to understand the pressures and way of working that clients need to go through.”
