An Open Discussion—In Two Parts
Part 1: How to Be A Great Client—Or A Better One.
Part 2: How to Be A Great Agency Partner—Or A Better One.
Alignment and misalignment
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(As reminder, we delayed publishing this, Part 1b of our conversation with agency executives, because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. As we hit “publish” now, we lose no sight of this, and keep the people of Ukraine, and indeed those who would choose peace in Russia, in our thoughts.)
Part 1 continued:
It’s hard to be a good client. Very hard. The pressures are real and many.
It’s equally hard, for reasons both similar and different, to be a good agency. Under the best of circumstances, ideas find no easy path from conception to execution. Some of the same internal and external forces that contribute to the CMO having the C-suite’s shortest tenure, can conspire to make them almost unrecognizable from where and what they began. The children’s game of “Telephone” serves as apt metaphor.
But when client and agency don’t align, collaborate, and partner, getting to good work (to say nothing of great work) is something of a miracle, really.
While I’ll be following up shortly with the perspective on this relationship and the path to great work from the CMO perspective, my conversations with 8 brilliant agency executives, each of whom offers their POV on what it takes to be a good client and get to great work, continues now. If you missed it, part 1a is here.
As reminder, I asked each a version of the same questions, synthesizing them to four. Today, we consider the latter two, having covered the first two last week.
1. What makes for a good client; the kind that helps make great work possible?
2. What do clients sometimes do/not do that can kill great work—from the beginning of the process or along the way?
3. What’s an agency’s responsibility to helping a client get to great work?
4. What advice do you have for your next great client on being a great client?
What follows brings together conversations had separately. (Again, full disclosure: until December, while still at Endeavor, I was colleagues with Nick Phelps, one of the execs interviewed here.) Some answers have been slightly edited for brevity and/or clarity. In alphabetical order, here’s some of what they shared:
Part 1(b): How to Be a Great Client. Or a Better One.
“Have big ambitions” – Karina Wilshire, Partner and Global CEO, Anomaly
Seth Matlins: What’s an agency’s responsibility to helping a client get to great work?
Kristen Cavallo, CEO, The Martin Agency: To encourage trust and partnership—be accountable. Believe that the brand or product has something interesting to say, and have a clear POV on how brands grow today.
Glenn Cole, CCO, 72 and Sunny: Just as a great CMO needs to study and understand the value of creativity, a great agency needs to be curious about what drives the commerce of their partners, and to care about the very specific dynamics of that person, brand, product, and audience.
We have to know what would prevent a transformative idea from making it through the client’s system. Successful agencies understand that landscape and help their client move it through the system.
Jason Harris, Cofounder, Mekanism: Assume genius—on both sides. The CMO’s job is a really hard one, they have to think short-term and long. We need to assume the client knows their business and knows we do ours.
While I worry it’s cliche, mutual respect is the basis of good collaboration. We need to demonstrate ours as we ask for theirs.
Rachel Mercer, Cofounder and CXO, Proto: Agency partners need to have a better filter and focus. It’s something we’ve lost in the past decade. We’ve become order takers, lost prioritization, (because we) feel like we need to address all feedback. But not all feedback is created equal. It’s our responsibility to help the client focus.
Nick Phelps: EVP and Head of Client Service, 160 Over 90: We have to understand their business, pressures, constraints, objectives—their brief. Our responsibility is to make sure the work will make the client’s audience care, and then deliver the work in a way that stands out.
Jimmy Smith: Cofounder, CEO and CCO, Amusement Park Entertainment: I have yet to crack that code, but I’m still trying. What we do is extremely hard. You’ve got to build a relationship where clients trust you, which isn’t possible with every client.
You need to understand where your client is in their career lifecycle. Are they willing to take a risk? If not, then coming in with a risky idea is a waste of time. Are they looking to do something big that catapults them to their next job, or do something safe that gets them to retirement?
Derek Walker: Creative and Owner, Brown and Browner: Our first job is to protect the client from the client. It’s incumbent on an agency to try to slow them down. Deadlines are often man-made. We’ve convinced people (we have) to move at the speed of light. Why? How does that serve the work, result, or the client?
Karina Wilsher: Partner and Global CEO, Anomaly: It’s amazingly common not to have a discussion or alignment on what great work is, and what it means to an individual (CMO) in this moment in time. You need that.
A great agency should hold itself accountable for great work, and be accountable to performance and KPI. We have to help clients have confidence that our work will work, and embrace any measure that creates a shared sense of skin in the game.
Matlins: What advice do you have for your next great client about being a great client?
Cavallo: Advertising is seen by everyone, but not everyone is capable of creating memorable ads; that’s why so many fail to capture or retain our attention. Respect the discipline. Study great marketing and marketers. Set big goals for your team and agency. Don’t be nervous to be talked about–aim for impact.
Cole: To get from good-to-great, you need to be a student of creativity and the creative process.
The best CMOs understand the value of ideas, and know that ideas thrive or only when conditions allow them to. Create those that will nurture an idea’s potential not cut it down.
Harris: Let us in. When things are going wrong and right. The more information an agency has the better they partner they’ll be. Don’t shield the agency because you’re worried about muddying the waters.
We’re problem solvers, but only if we understand what the problem is.
Mercer: Spend time listening before you start acting. Know what’s working, what’s not, and why. Make clear what you want, and what we could be doing differently.
Sometimes (new clients) dismiss history, wipe the slate clean, when a lot of great heritage and insight may be living in the work your brand has done and just needs to be unlocked.
Phelps: Care passionately. You only get one career, one shot at doing great things. Commit to not being average. Don’t try and do what you did last year plus or minus 5%.
Recognize great work when you see it. Have the commitment, competence and clarity to know what makes it great and keep your eyes on this when there are 100 different voices making you doubt and overthink and forget it.
Smith: Stop hiring the same mother-(expletive deleted). You keep hiring the same people you’re going to keep having the same results. You’ll keep producing the same type of generic work because you go to the same types of cultures.
Look for the creatives who care. The ones who are passionate about creative, about selling your product; about the brand. The ones who want to do work that helps. If you’re just getting ‘okayed’ then they’re trying to give you what they think you want. It’s your call as CMO, but I think you want people who are willing to respectfully disagree. Let them.
Walker: There’s no formula to get great creative. What makes a great song? It’s about who sings the song and produces the work. The best ideas need a chance to grow and be fostered.
Address your fear, actually go straight to the fear. At the end of every transaction is a human being who is afraid of something. Losing their job, status, failing. You can be afraid but you can’t be controlled by the fear. Have the courage of your convictions.
Wilsher: I once had a client whose email signature read ‘client’s get the work they deserve.’ That was so galvanizing, reinforcing a shared sense of purpose. Do that. Have big ambitions. Don’t think incrementally. Ask a lot of your agency, then make sure they’re rewarded for their true value.
Be willing to explode the traditional definition of ‘creativity.’ Be expansive in your thinking about what creativity means and how it’s applied. Sign up to do something truly remarkable together.
End Part 1.
While we’ll hold our conversation wrap-up until next week, when we get the CMO’s perspective on how to be a great agency partner, we reiterate that there exist common words, themes, experiences and recommendations that all clients and agencies would do well to consider and, we hope, discuss with each other. Big thanks to the execs that were willing to speak with us on the record about this.
As I’ve told my children, (we) can’t fix a problem if (we) don’t know what it is.
Back with the CMO POV shortly, until then let me know what you think here.