To get the most from your ad agency, it is important to understand how an agency works, so that you will know the limitations and the unlimited potential of an ad agency. This article outlines the creative process so that you will better understand how the agency brings a creative solution to your marketing challenges.
But first, let's review the previous nine tips for "Getting more from your agency." If you have been reading the blog, you already know that, as the client:
1. You need to define your target audience both, per project and overall.
2. You need to give your agency a firm budget and timeframe for any project and the overall account.
3. You need respect your agency's expertise and taste in order for the partnership to work well.
4. When you create advertising/marketing material, it shouldn't be about you, it should be about what's in it for your customer if you want it to be successful at bringing in new customers.
5. Your ads should Show Don't Tell in order to quickly communicate to your audience.
6. You should Give Your Agency One Point-of-Contact, unless you want your agency fees to balloon.
7. You must have an iron-clad Approval Process and try not to be too nit picky, or your budget will soar.
8. Get to know the Lingo Your Advertising Agency Uses, so everyone, client and creative talent included, speak the same language and avoid confusion.
9. You should learn about the various Roles of the People Working at the Agency so you will understand that creative work doesn't happen in a vacuum or in an instant.
So now that you know all of the above, let's discuss the Creative Process and how an ad agency transforms your particular marketing challenge/situation into a solution.
The first step in arriving at a marketing solution is to communicate your objectives and goals to your Account Executive and/or agency principals. If you have been working with your AE for some time, then he/she should be pretty familiar with your business and/or industry. However, you have to realize that the AE's first business is communications and marketing, not making widgets/selling services in the fill-in-the-blank industry.
No matter how long you have been working with your AE, you need to realize he/she doesn't actually work in your industry, so you and your employees will always know more about your industry than your agency representative can ever hope to know. Just like your AE will always know more about what goes on in the communications business than you can ever hope to know.
In your meeting with your AE, any background information you provide will help the agency better craft a successful solution. These data could include past brochures and marketing materials, competitive information, industry information etc. Allow your AE to have full access to your staff in order to conduct interviews and gather information. Like a reporter searching for facts, your AE should be working to uncover the hidden gems that could be your next marketing success, assuming the budget allows.
The more you enable your AE, the more information you give him/her the less time it will take, and the less money it will cost you.
Step Two is when the AE takes the information about your marketing challenge back to the creative team and briefs the team.
You may think, "Why can't the creative team just come to meet with me in person? It would save time."
But, generally speaking, agencies are not going to want their creative team to be sitting next to the AE while the research and planning is being conducted at the client side.
There are many reasons for this such as, meetings and research can be very time consuming and some threads just lead to dead ends, which would be a waste of the creative team's time. Clients can go on and on in meetings, which is not the best use of the creative team's time, but it is a great use for the AE's time. The creative team is probably working on multiple business at the agency (sorry to tell you, but you're probably not the only one!), and the more an agency can minimize their client contact, the better they function.
A good AE will gather the information and present the relevant data to the creative team in an internal agency brief to jump-start the creative process. You need to have complete faith in the AE to get the job done.
Usually, the creative team will get started with a brainstorming session. The AE or Creative Director (CD) will lead the session and allow the copywriter and art director/designer team to participate. Ideas will be placed on the table, discussed, analyzed, and put in place. Some will be discarded, or set aside for later use. Others will be fleshed out.
Once an idea/solution takes hold, the creative team, needs to prepare a presentation for the client to evaluate. The creative team, including the AE, will work hard on this presentation: This is the "pitch" and it will be heading to you, the client. Money will be spent getting your presentation ready, as will agency time.
When you finally see it, the presentation probably represents hours and hours, if not weeks, worth of work, expertise and creativity, and should address your marketing challenge and present various solutions, given your budget.
Who at the agency will be involved in developing this presentation? Everyone! Creative solutions will be developed, media buys will be estimated, art and production costs will be evaluated.
Here's where the budget comes in. The money you are willing to spend on your creative solution will dictate what your agency can suggest to you.
Would a hovering helicopter shot of a marching band spelling out your logo in the middle of Wrigley Field solve your marketing challenge? If you don't have a budget, then that solution is not going to be on the table.
Once your agency has developed the presentation for you, then your AE and possibly the agency principals will present to you and your team, depending on the situation. Let's say you like the solutions your agency presents and the budget is approved.
Now you are basically 1/3rd of the way to the end.
Taking the marching band at Wrigley Field example, let's say your agency gets the greenlight from you. What's next?
Well, the ad must be roughed out: copy must be written, art decisions must be made, media must be booked and purchased. Measurable systems should be put in place, as well, to gage the program's success.
It's possible the agency will need to hire a photographer or illustrator, and in this case, a marching band and rent a helicopter ride. Maybe a director needs to be hired.
All of this hiring and managing takes time and money. That's why an average network commercial can run into the six figures for a fifteen second spot.
Hopefully, your agency will help you realize economies of scale during any production. As long as the marching band and Wrigley Field are booked, and one photographer is in the air in the helicopter, why not hire a second photographer to shoot on the ground in case other types of materials can be developed from the event? In the long run, this could save a lot of money.
All during this process, your AE should be keeping you informed, in the loop, and sourcing approvals of agency action on your behalf. Don't get impatient with your AE, and keep in mind that seeing the same idea over and over, albeit in various stages of production, is the nitty, gritty, work of putting together a communications solutions to meet your goals.
You may get tired of looking at this same thing, what seems like over and over, but to NOT do it, is to risk the entire project and budget overruns.
Once the production is completed, you the client will need to review any final materials prior to publication/printing/airing or whatever the media being used calls for.
The AE should present the solutions and get your buy in. It's your responsiblity at this point to direct the AE and provide approvals. Don't make your agency go from you, to the president, to the operations manager, to the head salesman, for input and approval. That's your job. If you want the AE to do your job, be prepared to pay for it. (See point number #6 above).
Finally, you have given your approval on the project: You're two-thirds of the way done!
Now the work goes to the next level: to the distributors of communications projects. These entities could be printers, television broadcasters, direct mail houses, web programmers, CD duplicators, or billboard/signage companies, or (who knows?) other.
The project still requires management, communications, approvals, oversight. You're not done with your project until the audience absorbs the information into their brains.
Once that happens, then the evaluation process begins. How will you measure the success of the project? Hopefully you set up goals based on realistic expectations. Your AE should also be guiding you in what to expect. There are industry baseline standards for response rates that your agency should know from various media, for example a direct mail program is considered successful if the response rate is 3-6%.
And YOU, the client, should have the goods to deliver once your audience begins asking for it!
I can't tell you how many times it happens: An ad has been produced, the space booked, the creative material developed, the media placed, the ad runs, customers read it, call the company and – merchandise not available: Held up in customs, burned up on a truck, it's overpriced, or whatever.
All the 4 Ps must be in place for a marketing project to work. Your ad agency is only responsible for ONE of the 4 Ps. You the marketer, are responsible for the other three.
Hey, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it!
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