Agency Newsletters

After more than ten years and 7,000 agency reviews, we must sound like a broken record when we advise clients. But we tell them to visit their 6 - 7 semi-finalists. Other than a general overview, don't start briefing agencies on your assignment; save that for the finalists. Tour the agency (first), meet as many staffers as you can (evaluate chemistry), study the place and study their styles. Learn how they work from start (client challenge) to execution. Learn how media alternatives are chosen. Come to understand their process - if there is one. If they haven't covered everything, the agency may want to do a capabilities presentation. Let that happen.

Select 3 finalists and invite them to your headquarters for a final presentation. Send each finalist a marketing brief (share as much experiential data as you have and can afford to - an NDA might be in order) and give all contenders the same fixed budget to use for the pitch. The assignment asks each for a strategic presentation - with as much detail as each wishes to provide, to identify media alternatives, theme(s), concepts, the works. Measurement by the client is to determine which agency "gets it", which agency seems to understand the proper communication channels, and is capable of delivering the essential message.

For more insight, we suggest the client ask each agency (in advance) to prepare and present a

"mock" invoice for the presentation. In other words, had the agency been the AOR, show us what your talent at their rates would have us paying for what we just saw. And those rates should apply for the first fiscal year.

The challenge is to be as creative in the pitch process as you are in your work-product. For example, without using finished spec creative, I'd bet on our team. We'd carefully, slowly present our strategy, giving each client representative solid, sincere eye contact. We'd outline our media alternatives and we'd show tons of reach and frequency. We might even risk boring them a bit with detail. But just before it's too much, we'd draw back the curtain to reveal a statuesque gentleman, lit with a pencil beam of light, standing in shadows at a podium. "Ladies and gentlemen, to introduce our campaign using only the human voice as our instrument, may I present Mr. James Earle Jones."

CLIENT SEARCH TRENDS (BUSINESS IS POPPING)

I burned up more copy space than I intended above, so let me be brief. There's been a mild explosion in client search activity on the West Coast. That's great news, since that part of the country suffered much too long until recently.