Where to start? I guess it was yesterday when I finally realized we should probably start to speak up a bit about what's going on with creativity in agencies today. We're working a bit on preparations for the 2010 Census (be sure to mail in your forms when you get them) and investigating working with a larger agency in Chicago that has the umbrella contract for communications. To cut to the chase quickly, the thing that came up the most was that they were a fantastic creative firm, but when they were bought, it became about the numbers and not the work. Unfortunately, that didn't strike me as an overall negative since I've become accustomed to hearing this. I can say in all honesty that I've spoken with everyone from account leads, to creative directors, to technology in at least 4 of the major holding companies' portfolios and all have said the same thing. And usually is sounds like: "I spend more time looking at spreadsheets, WIP reports, forecasts, justifying revenue targets, and then double and triple checking these things, than actually working on the client's work. And when I do have the time (which ironically, is the thing all those tools are meant to measure), we can't simply concentrate on good work, but rather how quickly, and how cheaply can we achieve the goal?" (Usually what that means is a hierarchy of younger, less experienced staff members doing the bulk of the work since they have lower costs and lower bill rates).
It sounds like the free market could quickly change this, right? Sub-par work would lead competition to come in and take the work away with better work at lower prices. Yet, this does not happen. That confused me for a while. Another example: I had a consultancy that was comprised of 5 top-notch strategists that had been in leadership positions at larger agencies prior to coming on board with me. We were successful, but never so much as when we subbed for those larger agencies. At one client, their CTO became one of our advisors on our board. After just one of our consultants displaced 3 people from the incumbent agency (and at a lower hourly rate than just one of theirs), we asked him why we have so much trouble, and why companies continually choose lower quality at higher rates. His answer really shed some light on the situation small agencies have to deal with:
"If I go to my board and suggest we work with [insert small agency name], the burden is on me to defend this group that they may not have heard about. And if the project has problems, that will reflect negatively on me as the person who "gambled" with the "unknown" agency. However, if I come in with a large agency proposal, my board will be familiar with the name, I won't have to defend them, nor do I take the heat if they screw up. Remember, no one ever got fired for hiring IBM."
This was not something to take lightly. It meant that quality, customer service, creativity, and talent were not enough.
Now, this is not to say that there are no talented people in the large agencies. There are. I've worked with them, and they're great. And this is not to say that small agencies are doomed. They are not, and many of them thrive on doing excellent work on the handful of clients they do get to concentrate on. Yet, those talented people in the large agencies are typically frustrated and eventually pull clients out of the large agencies to start those small agencies with the intention of "doing it right."
But how do they grow beyond the anchor client(s) that they pull? And how does the agency that doesn't start from large agency roots with a built-in client begin to compete in the agency world for top-notch clients and projects?
I fully realize that part of the answer lies in doing great work, networking with the right people, subbing with the larger agencies, starting small, and forming great relationships with the client (among others). However, I think another part of the equation is to shed some light on the other side of the coin: the large agencies.
Over the next few blog posts I'd like to discuss and bring some clarity to the arguments of scope, reach, talent, and especially accountability. I'm not out to show that the large agencies are incompetent, but rather to show that small agencies deserve to be at the bidding table, and that the "nobody ever got fired for hiring IBM" argument should be retired. That a decision to bring in less experienced people that bill at rates well over $200/hr. is not always the most intelligent choice, and possibly could get you into hot water for not researching all the options. More to come...
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