Know what you don’t know
February 16th, 2009 | by Dion Hughes
In our never-ending quest to swim upstream, to help our clients as much as we possible can, us advertising people can forget one very important detail: we do not know what is at the head of that stream. We have no idea what it’s like to sit at the head of that table.
Consider this: most advertising creatives are marginalized, either by choice, or design, or inertia, into solving communications challenges.
The people inside an agency who more reliably know their clients’ businesses spend a lot more time on the corporate campus.
They, in turn, know far less about the business than the head of marketing. Yes, there are exceptions, but the chief marketing officer knows much more about the ways in which her company makes money and pays her bonus.
And then, the shocker of shockers - the position of CMO is not even on the fast track to true P and L responsibility. Meaning even our most respected ally on the marketer side isn’t given the credibility to run the company.
That puts even your above-average agency, let alone your above-average creative, at a crippling distance from the nuts and bolts of a client’s business.
Closing the gap is essential. Humility is a good place to begin.
February 17th, 2009at 6:13 am(#)
Awesome. Couldn’t agree more. Too often I’m surprised that the marketing group (internal or agency) are worried about interim communication steps of the organization vs. true business problems.
It is our job to fix business problems by any means necessary — and that is not always a spread, 30 second spot or banner.
February 20th, 2009at 8:18 pm(#)
I agree with you completely which made me think how I wish there were ways to establish this with every client prior to the start of a project. It’s seems rare for clients to look for an ad agency in terms of collaboration partners and even as a new “member of the team”. The idea of hiring an agency to solve your business/marketing problem without enabling them to succeed by educating and sharing your knowledge base and internal business drives/drivers is a recipe for mediocracy and most of all an avenue for poor representation of your brand. On the other hand we (the creatives/agency) need to learn how to approach clients with bigger, better questions in order to get to a true business solution executed in a way we should know best -creatively.
February 21st, 2009at 11:15 pm(#)
Thanks Chris. The potential is for clients to tap into some lateral-thinking specialists. It takes and open and patient client (getting to know a business takes time and effort on all sides) as well as a business-minded creative partner.
Boriana, thanks for your comment. You’re right - better questions lead to better answers, and maybe more importantly they lead to trust. So in the end I feel it is up to us to earn the right, rather than expect it.