Conventional Agencies: Pros & Cons

By Gonzalo López Martí – Creative director, etc./ LMMiami.com

Welcome to the second installment of a trilogy -or maybe a tetralogy- that will attempt a detailed SWOT analysis of the various paths a marketer can choose when hiring talent to roll out its communication campaigns. The first installment last week addressed the various strengths, weaknesses, opportunities & threats of using in-house agencies* for such purposes. Today: conventional agencies (conventional as in Madison Avenue-style shops, if you catch my drift).

  • In-house agencies are notoriously toothless but they are, are least in appearance, thrifty, focused and efficient.
  • In comparison, retaining an external autonomous shop can be plenty onerous.
  • Painfully so.
  • Particularly if we’re talking about one of the majors: Omnicom, WPP, Publicis and their assorted underlings.
  • 7 figures for a ten slide-long PowerPoint deck?!?!
  • Yup.
  • You are paying a premium though because retaining an agency with a marquee brand name also comes with an unwritten insurance policy: it gives you the peace of mind to protect your rear end if your campaigns do not deliver.
  • “Hey, don’t look at me. I’m only the CMO here! I hired the legendary Bentom Bontom & Bintom. It ain’t my fault if nobodys’ buying our new & improved glow-in-the-dark toothpaste…”
  • The other good thing about a conventional agency is, possibly, candor.
  • You are not their only client, their livelihood is not solely dependent on you, they should be more willing to tell you the truth, sans sugarcoating, warts and all.
  • Particularly if you are not their largest account.
  • Disadvantages: they might be slow to return your calls and emails.
  • Service will tend to suck over time.
  • Sooner rather than later you will be attended to by junior staffers who will roll their eyes at you like they are doing you a favor.
  • Or might use you shamelessly to win awards.
  • The senior execs will show up to the first couple meetings and then your business will be kicked down the tentpole to entry-levelers, interns and trainees.
  • If the agency in question is a multinational one, they will tell you that there’s a global network servicing your business.
  • Yeah right.
  • I’ve worked for most of them and, let me tell you, the network litany is utterly untrue.
  • They are silos.
  • More so, they compete with one another.
  • Fiercely.
  • They have different P&Ls.
  • It is a zero-sum game.
  • Some clients believe that they obtain collaboration and consistency from Madison Avenue-style agencies when they need to run global or regional campaigns.
  • Unbeknownst to them, what this logic actually creates is an open season climate of internecine competition.
  • Like every hunter knows, on open season you eat what you kill.
  • If BBDO Paris wins, BBDO Madrid loses.
  • It’s that simple.
  • They will stab each other in the back fiercely.
  • They might pretend they are working together to appease but behind closed doors it will be all out war.
  • Believe me, been there, done that: international networks are anything but.
  • More so, the client might end up paying fees to a handful of agencies to end up with just one campaign.
  • Then again, the insurance policy analogy kicks in: hey, don’t blame me if we are losing market share in Europe, I had BBB Madrid, BBB Paris, BBB Amsterdam, BBB Milan, BBB London and BBB Berlin work on our campaign.

* In-House Agencies: Pros & Cons
https://hispanicad.com/agency/business/house-agencies-pros-cons

 

 

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