Cut, paste and repeat

Without fail, each year at approximately the same time as rain calls off Wimbledon, leading Creative and Marketing focused publications, will carry a story from an agency expressing how they are re-inventing the Agency / Client model.

The story will weave in the latest buzz words as the writer describes their unique solution. I have several volumes of Marketing Week, Creative Review and so on stretching back to 80’s. The buzz words may have gotten a little more technical but the overriding story has not changed. I can recall sitting at my drawing board at University in the 90’s discussing the broken model with my fellow students. 

Yes, there are practices that need to be eliminated from the industry but the model is not broken. I am extremely fortunate to work at both ends of this incredible industry. As the Creative Director at Crab, a Digital Agency established some 12ish years ago, through out my time at Crab, my efforts and thinking have been focused on helping businesses to improve their digital presence and to promote their services and products in the most appropriate manner. Everything we do is focused on delivering a real and tangible return on the investment our clients have made, that includes the trust they have put in Crab and the people at Crab. My other, more recent role finds me working with clients to produce bespoke furniture and installations, again there is a need to provide a tangible return, but in this case it is less about the money and much more about how the end client feels about the piece. These unique roles allow me to occupy an incredibly rare space. I am both agency, client and key stake-holder. This experience has given me a rather interesting perspective on the Agency / Client model. It is far too easy to point fingers at clients and lay blame at their door. As it is easy to point at an agency and poor scorn on their work. 

Wait a moment before you start to troll me, let me set the record straight, there are bad briefs and dismal work out there. As indeed there are clients that need to understand the design process better and agencies who don’t deliver on that process. The industry is not broken, there has always been ’tension’ between client and agency, that ’tension’ is a good thing, we should all be aiming to do better. The desire to continually improve should create tension and challenges. The digital revolution is an incredibly positive thing, it has democratised information and allowed us all to explore new ideas. But it has also forced business to re-think how and what they do. It is no longer enough to sell stuff, it is no longer enough to turn up at a clients office and have them marvel at your slides simply because you have added their logo to yours on the template. Clients should challenge agencies that try to re-sell templates or cookie cutter thinking, Facebook tick, Instagram tick, Outbrain tick, Wordpress site tick. The reverse is also true agencies should challenge their clients and ask the difficult questions.

At Crab we try to follow the 70 / 20 / 10 principle. 70% of our time should be spent doing our job, 20% finding ways to perfect and improve what we do and finally 10% of our time should be spent exploring our industry and associated disciplines. 

A very smart man once said ‘No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it’ He also said, 'If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough’.
Albert Einstein 

Good clients, good agencies need to work together, openly, honestly and with commitment from both parties. They should set the objectives together, understand and agree what success will look like at the end of the project and have the courage to highlight when things are not going to plan. 

Where does that leave the industry?

Where it has always been, there are good and bad briefs, good and bad work. Our focus has not changed, we will always seek out clients that want a real partnership, that want to go on a journey with their agencies and produce great work that has a positive effect on their business and ours.