(How To_205 Get Creative With a...)

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How to... get creative with agenciesWant a campaign to set the world on fire? That elusive creative spark needs the

right conditions before it will catch alight

Creativity spells success. Without it, your products risk rapid commoditisation

and your services become hard to distinguish from those of your competitors.

Given that the great majority of creative work is produced by external agencies,

getting good results usually depends on selecting the right agency partners in the

first place, supplying them with the information they need in order to meet your

objectives and monitoring their progress towards a desired outcome.

Expressed so baldly, this is nothing more than common sense. Yet there are

numerous opportunities for things to go awry, and many client-agency

relationships end in disappointment, exasperation and failure. So steel yourself,

and lets begin at the beginning: hiring the best agency partners for your creativeneeds.

Marriage guidance or divorce?

Before you can get creative, you need to get along. If you already have an

incumbent agency the first question you have to ask yourself is whether you can

both make a fresh start because marriage guidance is cheaper than divorce,

says Kerry Glazer, CEO of client-agency relationship specialist AAR. It may be

that your current agency does not have the resources to meet your needs. But if

theres a problem you should think about whether the relationship is salvageable

and how you can remedy it.

For public-sector bodies there are rigid tendering requirements, but most

privatesector companies have the freedom to determine their own selection

process. Glazer recommends making time in your busy diary to sit down in

advance of any appointment process and clarify your objectives, setting the

hygiene factors or basic necessities agencies must meet. Time spent doing

this upfront will save time later on, cutting out the possibility that you end up

dealing with agencies that are ill-equipped to meet your needs.

If you decide to hold a competitive pitch, less is often more. Apart from being

time-consuming, viewing presentations from eight different agencies may leave

you more confused than when you started. Keep pitch lists small, three or four

participants at most. Provide all the agencies with a comprehensive brief,wherever possible give them time to come back to you with any questions they

might have, and have them present their ideas at their offices. Seeing them in

their own environment will give you a clearer sense of the kind of people they

are, how they work and whether this is compatible with your needs.

Holdworkshopsinstead offormal pitchesto judge whichgroup of peoplewill gel with you

mostproductively

w to get creative with agencies - The Marketer magazine http://www.themarketer.co.uk/articles/how-to/how-to-get-creative-with...

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Chemistry, though hard to define, is vital. If agency collaboration with you and

your colleagues is top of your wish list, it might be better to hold workshops

rather than a formal pitch, to judge which group of people will be able to gel with

you most productively.

For brand-led companies like us its important to find the right chemistry in an

agency, says Orange UK head of brand communications Spencer McHugh.

We have to find out if they adhere to our brand values. So we try to spend time

with people, sometimes chatting about creative work, imagining working withthem.

Food company Bernard Matthews had three chemistry meetings with agency

Isobel, one of which included a set task, before the formal pitch that led to

Isobels appointment. However, the time investment in getting to know each

other paid dividends. Isobels solution came from spending time with Bernard

Matthews staff the creative was hooked on staff pride.

Bigger briefs

Great creative solutions emerge from clear strategies and in-depth briefs.

McHugh says that a good, detailed brief is often the summary of variousconversations held with the agency. Moreover, if time allows, he recommends

delivering the brief in a relevant and inspiring setting outside the office. For

instance, when briefing an agency to devise creative solutions aimed at a youth

audience, Orange has taken the team to Topshop in the West End and on

another occasion hired a bar.

By breaking away from the meeting room, it gives us all time and space to think

about things, says McHugh. It also demonstrates to an agency how important

a project is for us. Which, needless to say, focuses minds wonderfully.

Marketers promoting a drink intended to lower cholesterol, for example,

arranged for the creatives working on the account to take cholesterol tests

thereby highlighting a key product attribute, while giving several creatives

something to think about in terms of their health and lifestyle.

Will Awdry, creative partner at Ogilvy Advertising London, describes the birth of

creative ideas as an endlessly elusive subject. How does a crab get to the sea

when it only walks sideways?

Most important, in his view, is a structured enough process to allow people to go

off the rails. By laying down the fixed metal of a brief and a tight schedule, the

imagination can travel out of the window at random points. Its these that create

most interest; moments of insane logic that tell the story. Of course, the

post-match checks for message clarity, branding and whatnot are important, but

the truly unusual never emerges from predictive steps.

Creative or crazy?

What makes the combined clientagency team go with a mad idea? Simple

those involved agree the risk of going with it is far outweighed by the

catastrophic lunacy of not doing it, says Awdry.

Justin Hooper, creative director on the Citron account at Euro RSCG London,

says he always looks for the real truth about a product. The truth we picked for

the most talked about commercial of 2008 was that the Citron C5 was a rather

Germanic car for a French manufacturer. Controversial, slightly, but it was the

truth that was most motivating to potential buyers in the C5s segment.

The resulting adverts tongue-in-cheek send up of German clichs caused uproar

among the humourless. But, argues Hooper, the great thing about Citron is that

it was brave enough to risk alienating a few people, including the 25 Members of

Parliament who signed an early day motion to get the commercial banned. It

Remind your

agency partnersof your businessobjectives andthe metrics bywhich you willjudge thesuccess of theirwork

Dos and donts

Do be cute. For mash

get Smash was the

tagline for a series of

jaunty 1970s adverts,

created by the late John

Webster of BMP. It


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stuck to its guns to be sure of getting the message across to people who would

be interested in buying a proud French car that was unmistakably German.

Some marketers immerse their creative team in the brand challenge. LG UK

marketing director Andrew Warner says he has shrunk down the print adverts of

rivals and mounted them on a wall for direct comparison. You can see where

people are following sector rules, he says. For a challenger brand, it gives you

some insight into what you can do differently and, if you marry that with good

research, it can help you get the best from an agency.

Mark Slaughter, group brand manager at computer games company Ubisoft is a

big believer in inter-agency development, bringing various agencies together to

help develop creative solutions, with Audacity recently acting as lead agency in

the development of the Imagine brand of games for girls. Inter-agency meetings

are held each month to share creative ideas.

The number one rule is honesty and openness, says Slaughter. They are an

extension of your business. I dont see a line between client and agency. They

have to live your brand and be integral to your brand.

But while comprehensive briefing is a necessity, there is sometimes the risk that

too much information will clog up a creative agencys thinking. As LandorAssociates executive director Andrew Welch puts it, a brief with everything in it

is likely to lead to a lowest common denominator blancmange solution that

ticks many boxes but fails to inspire or break new ground. So prioritise what is

important and be single-minded in discarding the peripheral. Mastering the art of

sacrifice helps bring about singular ideas.

Ask the boss

Getting approval for an idea is a crucial point, and often a bone of contention

between client and agency. Stories abound of campaigns that fail to see the light

of day after a painstaking development process because a senior stakeholder is

only brought into the equation late on. Its an unpalatable scenario when the

creative work is presented only to be vetoed, to the chagrin of the agency and to

the great embarrassment of whoever is responsible for the project client-side.

Sarah Davies, group business director at agency Republic, says that the biggest

bugbear for agencies is presenting work to people who dont sign it off. She has

worked with clients who have used creative development as a team-building

exercise to give more junior marketers the chance to manage a project.

It can then be that someone more senior sees it at the end and realises that

they shouldnt have given that person the responsibility of a project, so it doesnt

go ahead, she says.

There are lessons in this for both junior and senior marketers. If youre more

junior, make sure you keep your bosses in the loop to nip false moves in the budearly on. If youre more senior, be sure that you keep on top of what your less

experienced staff are doing with a project at different stages along the way.

Whoever is managing the process also needs to make sure the agency is on

course to develop work that will meet the objectives of the brief that has been so

carefully put together and delivered. Remind your agency partners of your

business objectives and of the metrics by which you will judge the success of

their work. Also, provide access to any relevant data you have and ensure the

agency understands your brand and corporate culture. It can be hard to find time

to do this, but if the campaign is important it is time well spent.

The more proactive agencies will be reaching out to you for this sort of input.DDB London CEO Stephen Woodford says that the worst client-agency relations

are distant ones, particularly those where the client views the creatives at an

agency as a breed apart. In Woodfords experience, bringing clients face to

face with agency creatives always works well. In this way, client and agency can

work better as a team.

featured metal Mart ians

laughing at Earthlings

and our primitive ways,

such as the labour-

intensive peeling of

potatoes, emphasising a

product truth relating to

convenience while

securing enduring

affection through thedecades.

Do tap into youth culture.

Bartle Bogle Hegartys

sublime fusion of classic

pop music and cool

imagery in its adverts for

Levis 501s, beginning

with the 1985

launderette scene

starring Nick Kamen,

enhanced branddesirability and helped

boost sales by a

staggering 800 per cent.

Don't be afraid to be

different. Abbott Mead

Vickers BBDOs 1999

surfer advert for

Guinness is held by

some to be the greatest

of all time. Sumptuously

shot, it is advertising as

art, but its brilliance also

lies in the fact that it

turns a potential

downside of the product

into a glorious positive

good things are worth

waiting for.

Don't stray into

unpopular territory.

Youre never alone with

a Strand, ran the now

infamous tagline for thecigarette brand Strand in

an early 1960s TV

commercial that showed

a raincoatclad man

lighting up in a deserted

street.

The product bombed and

was quickly withdrawn

from the market because

of the negative

associations withloneliness created by its

advertising.


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Gliding unhindered by baggageWhen developing its latest campaign with agency BBH, Barclaycard

deliberately freed its creative partner from the shackles of past campaigns

Through the use of comedians such as Rowan Atkinson and Green Wing stars

Julian Rhind-Tutt and Stephen Mangan, the Barclaycard brand has long used

humour in its advertising. However, during the briefing process for a new

campaign, the card company made it clear it wanted to break new ground.

We said to BBH, lets forget about the past advertising, even though those

ads were incredibly popular and successful for us, says Barclaycard chief

marketing officer, UK cards, Gary Twelvetree. That lifts a great weight from

the creative team and allows them to get out of the box. We were clear it was

a step-change. If you are going to lead in a category, you have to lead with

your comms.

The Glide campaign, which shows an office worker sliding down a water

slide, swiping his cashless card on his way down, has been well received, even

spawning a viral parody from Specsavers in which the protagonist takes a

flume into a builders skip. Twelvetree says he was able to proceed withconfidence because he secured the backing of senior stakeholders in the

business, including his CEO, early on in the campaign development process.

Sometimes, unfortunately, despite best endeavours in the briefing and agency

handling process, the solution is not what you envisaged or would wish for. What

to do then? Lay all the blame at the agencys door?

Avoid an adversarial approach, says LGs Warner. Better to say, we are

where we are, lets draw a line under it and look at how we move forward. If

you build a reputation as a client who doesnt work collaboratively you wont get

the work you want because the best creatives wont want to work on your

business.

A relationship with an agency is like any important relationship. Trust, hard work,

openness and clarity greatly enhance the probability of a happy outcome.

Robert Gray is a freelance writer for marketing titles including Campaign


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