Highly approve of this recent AdAge article outlining five “best practices” for improving the client-agency relationships. Only one thought I’d like to add. It isn’t just the “creative brief,” but rather ALL briefs that need attention. Original article at: http://adage.com/columns/article?article_id=144550
Advertising Compensation and Benchmarking, Contract Compliance and Risk Assessments are vital services for large corporations with tens of millions, if not billions of dollars of marketing spend. Advertising Audit International (AAI) provides exactly these services to a broad range of Fortune 500 brands. Adding BriefLogic’s new “agency input audit” to the mix gives corporations a first-ever 360 degree view of their agency engagements.
In the complex and often confusing world of client-agency transactions, AAI’s standard review techniques are cost-effective methods to ensure the accurate and timely review of advertising costs and expenses. While most financial review firms, auditors and CPA firms typically use sampling techniques, AAI examines each individual invoice and its related line item costs for accuracy and contract compliance.
However, as AAI CEO Michael Lay states, “all of the costs we help recover for our clients, and it is a staggering figure, may be just the tip of the iceberg as we go to market with our new BriefLogic partnership.”
According to some industry analysts, total communications spend worldwide, across all marketing disciplines will exceed one trillion dollars in 2010. Currently, the corporate side of the industry is focused on the outcomes of that spend. Marketers are constantly interrogating the output of their agencies, their creative ideas, or the “stuff that sells.” According to co-founder and CEO, Casey Jones, BriefLogic has proved conclusively that someone has to think more deeply about the quality of the direction that sets these billions of dollars in motion. In a recent survey conducted by Greenberg Brand Strategies, it was determined that 30 percent of all agency time and energy is wasted or made inefficient due to poor input from marketing and brand managers.
Where AAI has experience in making sure that every single dollar that a marketer’s agency spends is accounted for, BriefLogic makes sure that it is directed properly at the front end of the process. AAI provides comprehensive audits of agency spend after-the-fact, and BriefLogic provides briefing tools, audit services, and agency input training to give marketers and agencies confidence that waste and inefficiency don’t occur on the input end.
Nice blog post from Media Asia – http://bit.ly/cuN8GH rating the joint BriefLogic/Microsoft bit at the ANA “one of the most introspective and interesting presentations” of the event. Great response in general from a lot of corporations attending the event, including General Mills, 3M and American Express. Thanks and compliments to co-presenter Bruno Gralpois of Microsoft.
When Dr. Daniel Bonevac and I started Jones&Bonevac with Deon Lewis and a handful of other sharp marketing executives, we did so in response to a growing need for our specialized agency management consulting services. The solutions we developed soon became more than brains for hire. We developed specific products and services aimed at scaling our best thinking, and helping the corporation we serve maximize every marketing dollar. Yet while we have updated our company name to better reflect our DNA, our roots remain the same. We recognize that while the output of marketing agencies is often creative, the input cannot be. Assignment briefs, project briefs and RFPs must make sense. The direction corporations give marketing agencies must be rational, reasonable, sensible . . . in short, logical. Welcome to BriefLogic, and to the BriefLogic Blog.
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In a recent article on Budweiser’s scrapped “Drinkability” campaign (Ad Age, March 15 2010, “Bud’s big blunder: letting consultants run away with brand) Jeremy Mullen examines the growing influence management consultants have over creative agencies. As Mr. Mullen writes, “Management consultants popping up in marketing isn’t exactly new.” However, he concludes “the degree to which these consultants’ recommendations and findings can translate directly into creative is becoming a familiar frustration for agencies.” Beyond the obvious roles & responsibilities debate, Mr. Mullen’s last statement raises an intriguing question: what information SHOULD “translate directly into creative?” Regardless of who originates it, an enormous amount of data is generated in preparation for a new campaign. Assumptions are made and conclusions are drawn. But not all of this is suitable for the creative brief which should, in fact, “translate directly into creative.” How does one ensure the quality of the brief given to the agency? The first step is to follow a structured and disciplined process. Although it may be common practice to forward slides from the consultant straight to the agency, it is not a suitable substitution for a proper brief. There must be agreement between the client and agency on what information is required to initiate a new project. Information overload is just as debilitating as information gaps in the creative development process . . . so understanding the agency’s needs up front is critical. And there must be a robust approval process to ensure all internal stakeholders are in agreement with the instructions before they’re given to the agency. The second step to ensuring the brief’s quality is to implement an objective standard to evaluate its content against. Even following a defined process, a “good brief” can be as elusive as “good creative.” That’s because evaluating content subjectively leaves it open to interpretation and opinion . . . and that puts the end-product at risk. Faulty logic, poor assumptions or weak arguments are harder to spot without established criteria with which to assess the content. Ironically, the risk of this is exceptionally high when a brief is being circulated for internal approval since there’s a chance that group-think has already set in. It’s been said that success has many fathers while failure is an orphan. “Drinkability” it appears, is headed for the orphanage. Focusing on a more disciplined briefing process can both restore the delicate balance between client, consultant and agency and keep all three fighting to claim their progeny going forward. |
Avi Dan, CEO of Avidan Strategies recently wrote a CMO Strategy article for AdAge titled, “As Shops Transform, Marketers Must Adapt Too: CMOs Must Draft a Blueprint for the New Client-Agency Relationship and Redesign Their Role.”
In the article, Mr. Dan expresses the shift in compensation from the model established at the dawn of the industry in the late 19th century to value-based agreements which base pay for performance, thereby aligning the interests of clients and agencies more closely. He mentions a number of key aspects that may be included in the new model, such as de-layering the service structure of agencies by reducing middle management; or relying more on freelance creatives and planners, this is something he calls Hollywoodization.
Mr. Dan also recommends that CMOs redesign the client’s side of the relationship as well by having marketers adapt a new set of skills and responsibilities. He primarily focuses on the skill set of the CMO and one aspect we at Jones&Bonevac especially agree with is what he calls, Process Audit and Design. The following is an excerpt from his article:
Process audit and design. With leaner agencies, single-mindedness is vital. CMOs should develop and champion a time-saving and labor-saving streamlined marketing and advertising process. You should ask yourself continuously, are assignments properly established and budgeted? Outcomes quantified, agreed to and documented? Is the approval process logical and prompt? Timetables unambiguous? During the transition, CMOs should establish a marketing and advertising process design plan to avoid operational bottlenecks.
Why we think that Mr. Dan is so spot-on will come as no surprise to those of you who regularly follow our blog. Just like Mr. Dan, we recognize the need to save time and labor by developing a process to streamline the marketing and advertising process.
We agree with the questions that he suggests to constantly be asking. While it may seem obvious that assignments should be properly budgeted, all too often the agency will go over budget as a result of unclear timetables or a lack of documented and quantified outcomes.
Mr. Dan also brought up the particularly important approval process; we suggest that one way to make it more logical and prompt is to reduce the number of decisions makers to one or two at the most. When the process clearly defines who is responsible for what and that there is little or no overlap among managers and decision makers, then the chances of success dramatically increase.
The ongoing transformation of the relationship between clients and agencies is something we at Jones&Bonevac take very seriously. We deliver multi-tiered solutions to our clients to help them quickly adapt to the challenges of the changing times. We offer training to companies seeking to give their marketers a head start in adopting these new roles and responsibilities. We provide a service as an objective third-party to review and audit our client’s communications with their agencies in order to design a more efficient and cost-saving process.
If you are interested about how your company can benefit by adopting these strategies then feel free to email info@jonesandbonevac.com, or visit our website at jonesandbonevac.com to find out more.
Not that long ago, when agencies invested enough in themselves to have a point of view about account management, the training to make sure it was understood, and the management focus to make sure teams adhered to agency principles, there was this simple tool called a Contact Report.
You may be young enough— in fact your entire team may be young or inexperienced enough—that you’ve never seen one or even heard about them. Yet this seemingly innocuous account management communications task of writing down the direction that a marketer is providing appears to be lost from the scene. Its loss creates enormous waste in the marketer-agency relationship.
It was simple. Contact Reports were the one essential agency tool for managing expectations on any project. They were mandatory. As an account manager, all you had to include were these five items:
Contact Reports used to be an industry standard. Failure to produce one after a client meeting could be a mortal sin for an agency account or project manager, especially if that failure led to a miscommunication that cost the marketer money. Contact Reports tracked all the inevitable changes in the work. They settled disputes over what the agency was or was not asked to do. They helped resolve billing issues.
Not a single marketer, of the dozens and dozens I’ve talked to this last year, can remember getting a contact report from an agency of any kind after a meeting. Agency account managers have become lax on this issue, perhaps due to the mistaken assumption that email communication alone provides an accurate summary of decisions and expectations. Nothing could be less true.
No one searches through email correspondence to track decisions in a complex and expensive process. Directors of Client Services, senior account leadership and agency CEOs have become dropped the ball. Their defense? “Clients don’t expect them anymore.” They should. Corporations pay the price that is always due when communication between two groups is not precise and documented.
These simple guidelines, built into every SLA (service level agreement) or agency contract, will save both the client and the agency time, reduce churn, improve the work, and prevent mishaps in the essential partnership necessary to accomplish vital marketing goals.
Marketers should make sure their agency commits to the following process:
As AdAge reported in the article, Want More Out of Your Agencies? Write Better Briefs, up to 30% of all agency time is made inefficient or wasted due to poor input. Some of this may, in fact, be the agency’s fault. The input may have been spot on for a given project, yet it may have been delivered in an unstructured manner. The agency’s failure to capture that input in a simple contact report precipitated the project’s collapse into chaos. Stop. Let’s rethink that last statement. If you, the marketer, haven’t required that your agency maintain best-practices in documenting changes in the work, you own the primary responsibility for the breakdown in communications. Most agencies will provide the level of service that marketers require of them.
Our advice to agencies? Step back up to the standards that were common in the days of the Mad Men, and mandate that your client-facing teams produce timely, comprehensive and accurate Contact Reports. If you do, your clients will respect everything else you do all the more.
Our counsel to marketers? If your agency managers don’t provide this level of service (and it is highly likely they don’t) then require it of them. If you don’t hold them accountable, then this much is certain – every communications failure about the work will guarantee that the work will either suffer or be more expensive. In an age of communications chaos, let’s not forget the fundamentals.
The January 15, 2010 issue of The Week published an excerpt from a book titled, The Checklist Manifesto, by Atul Gawande. He is a surgeon by trade and found that in his profession human error would be avoided by a simple solution: checklists. He ends the article by saying medicine isn’t the only field where checklists will help but that: “There may be no field or profession where checklists wouldn’t be tremendously beneficial.”
We at Jones&Bonevac feel the same way, particularly about how checklists can improve marketing efficiency. If you read the article, you’ll notice Dr. Gawande describes the process of building a skyscraper. The 32-story office and apartment complex he visited was being raised by the hands and minds of 250 individuals working at the site. Each person was responsible for tasks that determined whether or not the building would stand or fall. Building a successful marketing campaign is no different than building a skyscraper. Each person, whether on the client side or on the agency side needs to be sure to perform their task the right way at the right time in order for the project to succeed.
With a checklist, one can only imagine how much more efficiently and effectively a marketing communications plan would come together. So much time and effort would be saved, so many dollars and resources would not be wasted, if only marketing and advertising employed the use of a simple checklist.
Dr. Gawande states a theory in his book. He says: “Under conditions of complexity, not only are checklists a help, they are required for success.” If you know anything about marketing and advertising you will agree it is absolutely a complex process.
Now put your pen to paper and draw a small box in the upper left hand corner and write next to it, email info@jonesandbonevac to learn how to further improve marketing efficiency.
The following post is in response to the AdAge article titled, “Planning Your Next Move in Ad Land: The Challenges and Pitfalls Ahead for the Industry 2010.”
The most successful agencies in the next decade will not be averse to procurement executives. They will neither think “dreaded procurement,” nor dread the questions posed by procurement. They are, at their essence, questions about value and differentiation. Is the agency service valuable? Is it different from the shop next door? If the answers are yes, there is little to dread. If no, then they have only themselves to blame.
Procurement is getting smarter the more they get involved. At the moment, many of their executives don’t understand our industry. That is changing rapidly. Even if they dial down the pressure (which is not likely) the rules governing agency revenues and profits will never change.
Create business value, in a way that is different from your competition. If you do, the field is yours . . .
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At Jones&Bonevac, we think there is a phenomenal lack of clarity on this vital issue. After all, how can you have a discussion with your agency (or your client) about brand building, if you don’t share the same definition of the term? If you don’t agree on what it means, how can you commonly agree on the right way to build yours?
A great deal has been written and said on this subject. For the moment, let’s simply ask “what contemporary definition should the lexicographers at Oxford or Cambridge put in dictionaries under the noun “brand?”
Here are some starting points. Some are definitions. Some are simply commentary. Vote for any you agree with below as comments. If you have a better suggestion, POST it.
“What’s a brand? A singular idea or concept that you own inside the mind of the prospect.” - Al Ries
“A house of brands is like a family, each needs a role and a relationship to others.” - Jeffrey Sinclair, Brand Strategist
“Long-term brand equity and growth depends on our ability to successfully integrate and implement all elements of a comprehensive marketing program.” - Timm F Crull, Chairman & CEO of Nestle
“The primary focus of your brand message must be on how special you are, not how cheap you are. The goal must be to sell the distinctive quality of the brand.” - Kerry Light, Brand Strategist
“Any damn fool can put on a deal, but it takes genius, faith and perseverance to create a brand.” - David Ogilvy
“Well-managed brands live on – only bad brand managers die.” - George Bull
“Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business.” - Warren Buffett
“Brand value is very much like an onion. It has layers and a core. The core is the user who will stick with you until the very end.” - Edwin Artzt
“I am irresistible, I say, as I put on my designer fragrance. I am a merchant banker, I say, as I climb out of my BMW. I am a juvenile lout, I say, as I pour an extra strong lager, I am handsome, I say, as I put on my Levi jeans.” -John Kay
“A brand is a living entity – and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures.” - Michael Eisner, CEO Disney
“Brand is the “f” word of marketing. People swear by it, no one quite understands its significance and everybody would like to think they do it more often than they do.” - Mark di Soma, Audacity Group
“Your brand is created out of customer contact and the experience your customers have of you.” - Stelios Haji-Ioannou, Chairman, EasyGroup
“We view the experience of a Krispy Kreme store (where customers watch their donuts being baked behind glass) as the defining element of the brand.” - Scott Livengood, CEO, Krispy Kreme
“One of the biggest responsibilities of management is to look after the corporate DNA.” - Andrew Rolfe, CEO, Pret A Manger
“The more you engage with customers the clearer things become and the easier it is to determine what you should be doing.” - John Russell, President, Harley-Davidson
“Brand equity is the sum of all the hearts and minds of every single person that comes into contact with your company.” - Christopher Betzter
“In a fast-paced world, today’s popular brand could be tomorrow’s trivia question.” - Wayne Calloway, American Industrialist, Chairman Of Pepsico Annual Report, 1989
“A brand name is more than a word. It is the beginning of a conversation.” -Lexicon
“Customers must recognize that you stand for something.” - Howard Schultz, Starbucks
“Brands are the express checkout for people living their lives at ever increasing speed.” - Brandweek
“Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.” -Walter Landor
“The customer is the appreciating asset.” - Federal Express
“Every status has its symbol.” - Advertising Slogan
“Companies have to wake up to the fact that they are more than a product on a shelf. They”re behavior as well.” - Robert Haas Of Levi Strauss
“In the context of Living the Brand, purposes and values are not created, they exist – the issue is how well they are articulated and embedded.” - Nicholas Ind, Living the Brand (2001)
“A brand that captures your mind gains behavior. A brand that captures your heart gains commitment.” - Scott Talgo, Brand Strategist
“A brand is a set of differentiating promises that link a product to its customers.” - Stuart Agres, Young & Rubicam
“The three key rules of marketing are brand recognition, brand recognition, brand recognition.” - Anon
“A trademark is a symbol of a corporation. It is not a sign of quality … It is a sign of the quality.” - Paul Rand
“We are no doubt in the Great Age of the Brand.” - Tom Peters
“A global brand-building strategy is, in reality, a local plan for every market.” - Martin Lindstrom, Clicks, Bricks & Brands
“You”re just anybody without your identity.” - Grenville Main, DNA Design
“A brand is the proprietary visual, emotional, rational and cultural image that you associate with a company or product.” - Charles R. Pettis Iii, Brand Solutions
“A brand is an image seared into your mind of how YOU BELIEVE others will perceive you if you own a certain product or service. It is seared into your mind through branding, which, thank god, is no longer achieved the old fashioned way with a hot poker.” – Jeff Shattuck, Copywriter
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