WHAT CLIENTS WANT
AND HOW PLANNERS CAN HELP
JULIAN COLE
9 key themes from what clients want in 2018
and how planners can help agencies get there.
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30 OF THE TOP MARKETERS WERE ASKED...
What are you asking for from agencies today
that you were not asking for 5 years ago?
Vincent Bahk (FIS)
Vivek Bellore (E. & J. Gallo)
Stefan Bothoff (Vodafone)
Mark Cichon (ex-Mars)
Skip Dampier (Carenet)
Diego Dumont Fenerich (Mondelez)
Stephen Ellis (World Vision)
Justin Erb (E. & J. Gallo)
Tim Evans (ex-BT)
Maria Paula Gudino (Pepsi)
Dani Hakim (Health at Hand)
Taylor Hines (LinkedIn)
Jon Hildrew (ex-Boots)
Sophie Hirst (Youtube)
Kelvin Jewell (ex-Red Bull)
Lindsay King (Uber)
Alexander La Barba (ex-AT&T)
Andrew Lum (Tile)
Sunita P (Amazon)
Danielle Palmer (Samsung)
Tom Neal (Activision)
Juan Patti (Saint Honore)
Nick Riegal (ex-Checkers)
Burcu Sahin (Beam Suntory)
Veronica Silva (Esporao S.A)
Tiffany Seelen (General Mills)
Asad Shaykh (ex-Mobilink)
Martin Tapley (Co-Op)
Gwen Tan (Bose)
Charis Wilson (General Mills)
CONTRIBUTORS
10 KEY THEMES
1. TAKE OFF THE ASTRONAUT SUIT
The world is changing around agencies but they are still rigid in their response to clients
“Don’t say that you have a startup mindset, when you’re wearing the same heavy astronaut clothing you used the last two decades.”
“Please, be that beautiful, disruptive and collaborative start-up that you showed me in your credential when you say you are not an advertising agency anymore.”
“Gone are the days of client briefing, planner writes internal brief, waiting 2 weeks for a creative response, another two weeks for revisions, more internal reviews and big ta da creative preso. Clients want to be part of the process, helping to craft and refine thinking and we're impatient. We generally don't have the luxury of time on our side with the traditional lead times and old school approach of servicing clients needs.”
But be careful:
“Speed can have hidden costs, especially when it produces mistakes that could have easily been avoided if people had paused for a moment to think before executing. Speed is also the enemy of craft.”
WHAT PLANNERS CAN DO?
Innovative your own patch of work;
1. Create nimble research methodologies:
WhatsApp Focus Groups, Instagram Target Accounts
(HT - Diego Dumont Fenerich)
2. New ways to get to the creative briefs:
Brief Sprints with creatives and clients
2. BLURRED LINES
Clients no longer want to sit back and wait for the creative but be in the process of creation
“Clients no longer want to sit back and wait for the creative but be in the process of creation”
“Instead of a big closed keynote in four weeks, we want collaboration in thinking.”
“Biggest change is in roles. There used to be a clear role for the agency and for the client. Agencies need to be marketers and we ask them to involve client side marketers in the creative processes.”
“We consistently found better results if we found ways to work earlier or more often with our agency partners in a project vs. a big reveal at the end.”
“We are the kind of client that loves to work together, to discuss ideas, to prepare ideation and co-create sessions. But I do believe that most of the agencies are still trying to solve everything by themselves isolated in a silo that do not belong to a new era of brand building that we are living.”
“X Client (has one of the very best organisations in terms of use of empirical data to drive marketing and business growth) has a great growth model, but struggle in creative thinking in terms of innovations, product development”
WHAT PLANNERS CAN DO?
2. Find more opportunities to connect and help them with bigger problems.
3. MAKE IT ALL WORK TOGETHER
Disconnected ideas and agencies are causing clients headaches
“Integration is something that 5 years ago was an aim, but is now a mandatory.”
“More collaboration between different agencies during the planning process. It requires more respect for your peers disciplines, and more vulnerability about blind spots. It’s an approach I was less open to when I was on the agency side, but now I’m seeing value out of it.”
“Five years ago my brands were certainly not asking for the collaboration among our roster agencies we expect today...What we need is the insight(s) that drives all our agency partners’ work regardless of their role in creative development (campaign development, media strategy, execution) requiring them to start collaborating early in the process, not just once a creative idea has been sold through.”
“Unless you’re working together you’re only going to get fragmented disparate campaigns that don’t reach the people you need to.”
“Cut the clutter and connect me with the best talent and partners for my brand, that’s how to earn my trust.”
“Integration: cross functional, cohesive collaborative plans that do not just keep to ‘territories’ called out by clients.”
WHAT PLANNERS CAN DO?
1. Use Blueprints to coordinate everyone on the same page
2. Step up to the agency collaborator/facilitator
3. Help bring in other agencies (media specifically) through comms planning
4. SHAPESHIFTING IDEAS
Looking for agencies to come up with a whole range of different shaped ideas
“We need our agencies to sharpen the strategic and creative tools in their toolbox to unpack a business problem and partner with clients to use creativity to solve a problem. A TV script or creative platform isn't likely to change behavior - which is generally the root cause of most client's business problems.”
“There’s a switch from asking for assets and activations – things with a finite shelf life – to systems and ecosystems – things that will live longer and be updated and tinkered with.”
“Brands need a creative platform (a unified expression of a brand, inspiring all of it's behavior) that can be articulated/have a proof of concept through other means than a TV/Video script. I've never been able to get here with an agency. How can I articulate the creative universe that I live within without showing a TV spot?”
“I need a clear point of view in their voice, personality and historical behavior”
“I would love to have a creative partner that can think shelf to couch”
“We're after ideas that blur the line between digital and physical worlds.“
“Be open to ideas that come from anywhere. Yes, the client, the media agency, Walmart, Influencers, Shopper, PR agency.”
“Flexible ideas that I can make work for local markets. So, I want to see more versions of everything.”
“How do we move away from a campaign (with a start and end date) to a content-focused strategy?”
WHAT PLANNERS CAN DO?
1. Find out before the briefing what type of ideas the client is really after. Have a work session with clients to work out what type of ideas they’re after. Use past examples to inspire future (steal from Brand Action Library)
2. Use Brand Actions Library with creatives to help inspire them to different shapes of ideas
5. SELLING UP THE CHAIN
Agencies need to help more in selling internally
“Marketing is often seen as the coloring in department internally.
We need our agencies to help us buck this perception.”
“Spend time understanding what drives MY business and its success”
“Need more help with convincing internal stakeholders of the brands marketing investment.
This requires agencies to be able to focus on measuring outcomes or the lag effects of campaigns rather than measuring the inputs.”
“Agencies have been helping with building attribution for all marketing tactics within campaign planning. Especially technology startups (where senior leaders are skeptical of brand's ability to move the needle for growth).”
WHAT PLANNERS CAN DO?
1. Ask the client post presentation, how can we help sell this work into the rest of the business?
2. Work on the sell in deck, think of fast ways to prove the creative work will work
3. Have the effectiveness pitch of the deck in the appendix if it is a creative presentation
6. BUDGETS TO DUST
Big budgets don’t exist anymore but agencies seem to be holding on hope
“It’s the end of the millionaire briefs BUT you can build the millionaire and continuous campaign if you are really into the discussions of problems and opportunities that your client has along the year.”
“Agencies are still waiting for mega-briefs of pure equity and positioning campaigns that won’t happen anymore or that will become increasingly rare.”
“Seven figure retainers are a dime a dozen (and I'd expect this trend to continue) with more scrutiny on most clients marketing & production budgets requiring agencies to pitch for projects.”
“Generally everyone has to run leaner with a focus on business development.”
“AOR model is fading...fast. Now, I see brands - including our own - keeping a network of solid agencies on a roster and doling out assignments based on the needs of a specific project and/or to fill bandwidth gaps.”
WHAT PLANNERS CAN DO?
1. Inspire creatives with small budgets
Show award winning work on small budgets (20 ideas for under $20k)
2. Use the post report as a chance to find more opportunities for the agency
3. Ask them what are their big problems that you might be able to address?
7. TAKE MY RESEARCH
Clients want agencies to be more involved in gathering research and bringing insights
“We're asking our creative agencies to get more involved with insights discovery - quick, hacky field research, experiments, social listening.”
“More emphasis on qualitative discussions and research to uncover deeper emotions, feelings, beliefs vs. solely relying on data to drive recommendations.”
WHAT PLANNERS CAN DO?
1. Find new ways that you can help get to research for clients. Again the nimble examples of
WhatsApp Focus Groups, Instagram Target Accounts
(HT - Diego Dumont Fenerich)
8. BRING EMOTION
Tide is turning on rational data, clients want more emotional work
“We’re asking our creative agency to deliver creative work that resonates emotionally with audiences... we are measuring it too, rather than through standard tracking, so emotional engagement is baked into the brief“
“I’ve seen a greater expectation, seemingly fuelled by Binet & Field’s work, that agencies support brand-building activities, without any expectation of short-term effects; but at the same time, and in particular:
- a greater expectation, given the many data signals media agencies can buy against, that not a penny is wasted in reaching likely buyers.”
WHAT PLANNERS CAN DO?
1. Read Long and Short Of It, share and discuss with clients
2. Help create deck that helps sell in emotional work
9. THE DIGITAL COOLING
There’s a cooling on expectation of what digital can do
“Any sane marketer knows that the question isn't "what will change in 10 years" but "what won't change in 10 years?"
“Digital isn't the answer to everything and there has been a 'cooling' in the clamour to constantly be 'digital first'.”
“Tech companies don't seem to care much about elaborating strategies. They prefer to test and learn with lightning speed execution. In this way, business strategy has become like writing code: you write, test, rewrite. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. That kind of rigid thinking, based in engineering practices, doesn't and can't apply to marketing.”
WHAT PLANNERS CAN DO?
1. Help clients navigate what is going to change and what is not with the current landscape
2. Work out the operating system of your client and tailor your approach. Are they engineering lead with fail fast mentality or are they more research led.
Compiled by Julian Cole
📷 by Zev Hoover
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