Q. How does it work?
A. It begins when the searcher registers and defines their requirements. Each agency has described their firm using more than 500 database fields to identify attributes -- agency services, media experience, industry and market experience, employee census, office location, billing options, etc. Once the ideal agency is defined, our search engine sweeps the database to find and report how many agencies fit your criteria.
When that group is reduced to 35 or less, you'll have the opportunity to read and score a series of essays and case studies written by the agencies. The essays describe creative approach, strengths, client/agency philosophy and what sets them apart from the pack. Since they're not slanted to a specific situation, they reflect a true and ongoing statement of the agency's position. Essays and case studies function as tiebreakers and serve as a chemistry meter. The search can be refined as many times as necessary until the agency pool is reduced to a group of semi-finalists (usually, about ten or twelve) that will be invited. That concludes the on-line search.
Within 24 hours, a BPI consultant telephones to offer counsel and to discuss the selected agencies. With short-list in hand, and only with the searcher's permission, we invite each agency to contact the searcher by telephone. To facilitate and expedite, we handle all the paperwork, the search RFI, the invitations and confirmations. In the RFI, we can include additional descriptive information, and additional questions that may need answering. Searchers can have meaningful conversations with highly qualified agencies in days.