Pssst.. if you hear gossip, don’t pass it on.

Our marketing clients confirm that the number one reason to fire a marketing agency is if its employees disclose confidential information about their company. Thankfully, many marketing agencies include a code of conduct to reinforce confidentiality within employment contracts.

In an online poll last year, IABC Toronto asked its members: What are the key attributes of an effective business relationship? About 550 members replied that ‘trust’ is the single most important attribute of a strong business relationship. Trust is a very powerful term in a business context. It means that there is two-way respect and that both partners in a business relationship are working effectively toward the same goals. In other words, you have each other’s backs! Read the rest of this entry »

I attended a breakfast roundtable Thursday morning with senior marketers from RBC, Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp (OLG), and The Home Depot.  What made it doubly interesting is that two CFOs also participated.  The most stimulating part of the discussion had to do with “agency math” versus “CFO math.”

That point was most clearly illustrated by Rob Moore, SVP at OLG.  Rob spoke about his days as a senior marketer at HBC, where he said the retailer compared favourably to Wal-Mart in consumer preference surveys, brand favourability and the like — yet Wal-Mart was killing HBC in sales.  The lesson:  marketing metrics don’t always align with business metrics.  Therein lies a prominent disconnect between the CMO and CFO. Read the rest of this entry »

Never conduct a fishing expedition or cattle call of agencies to simply improve the performance of an incumbent agency or to gain new creative ideas without compensation.

We recommend that your RFP and presentation discussions require agencies to highlight their proven track record with relevant case studies. This will enable you to enquire more about how they would use a best practice for your organization. Read the rest of this entry »

In any relationship, if you don’t communicate openly about problems and issues, trouble is just around the corner.  Too often, clients dance around performance issues they have with their agencies, and vice versa.

This fact is confirmed by agency leaders themselves.  In a February 2009 survey of agency leaders (including 106 in Canada), agency respondents said that 61% of their clients do not “openly discuss their concerns about agency performance and make an effort to find solutions before the client ends the agency relationship.”   In fact, open feedback from clients is one of the few areas where Canadian agency leaders are more critical of their clients, in comparison with European and U.S agency leaders. Being too polite, human nature for most Canadians, can sometimes kill a relationship. Read the rest of this entry »

When marketing -communications clients are sizing up prospective agencies, we hear comments like … “they’d be a good fit”, or “I like their style”, or “I don’t feel a connection.”  These are all valid emotions when going through a highly subjective experience.   Finding a cultural link between client and agency is important, but it shouldn’t be the first step.

You might find an agency that you click with, but they won’t deliver the goods if they don’t have the functional capabilities and skills to meet your organization’s needs.  In fact, narrowing your agency criteria to about five measurable capabilities should be the first step in any agency search. Read the rest of this entry »