Five questions every CMO should ask a prospective ad agency
Most RFIs (request for information) sent to agencies are pretty standard, asking for facts, figures, management bios, client list, recent/wins losses, capabilities, strategic approach and examples of work. No doubt that’s all useful stuff. Some go a step further and ask for a description of the culture or perhaps what you think differentiates you from your competitors.
But if I were a CMO or a consultant, I’d want to know a lot more. Why? Because you’re not hiring an agency’s past, you’re hiring its future. And that future, while somewhat informed by previous accomplishments, is more likely to be a reflection of an agency’s vision, the newest people it’s hiring and its willingness to embrace what’s coming rather than preserve what’s been.
Here are the five questions I think you should ask.
1. What is the future of advertising?
This is a tough one for sure, but you’ll want to know if your agency has a clear sense of how much is changing, the new role of the consumer, the migration away from interruptive messages, and the technologies and platforms that make listening more important than talking. A forward thinking agency should have a pretty good point of view about how social media, technology, and the “good enough revolution” are changing the business.
2. What are you doing to assure your survival?
These days an agency should look pretty different than it did a few years ago. How have they made themselves more digital? What practices have been abandoned? How has the creative brief evolved? Maybe they’ve embedded connection planning into the creative group, developed alliances with best of breed partners, or launched a new practice. The innovator’s dilemma challenges all of us, but it’s no excuse for inactivity.
3. What are your criteria for hiring people?
Talent is everything. You certainly want people devoted to your business who have created famous work. But given that you’ll have to work hand in hand with people, you may also want to know what qualities the agency looks for. Curiosity? Courage? Relentlessness? Disruptive? Crazy? And find out for sure how many digital natives your agency’s hired recently. You definitely don’t want them playing catch up.
4. What is your definition of a creative team?
Who else besides the writer and the art director are on the team? Technology? User experience? Social media? Connection planner? Better yet find out whether or not the ageny even uses the label “creative” to refer only to writers, art directors and designers. It will tell you a lot about whether they think an idea is a message or something more compelling.
5. What are five recent creative ideas that aren’t ads?
Are they inventing new products for clients? Creating communities? Building platforms? Developing apps and utilities and WAP sites? Are they as committed to all the non-advertising platforms as to the :30 second spot? You might want to know. After all you may be hiring an advertising agency, but as the first question implies, advertising may be something different in the years to come.
What do you think? Other questions you should ask your next agency?
Comments
A very nice page. I think the effort has passed, we have to thank you:)) Web Tasaru00c4u00b1mu00c4u00b1
Brilliant thought process!!!
This is something that keeps coming up where various aspects of this topic are discussed, but i think you have collated and summarised the key points really well!! And therefore it makes me feel this era of advertising is the bet ever ... something none of the generations have experienced so far ... where the very core itself keeps evolving every few days, or rather every minute! :)
Though at some level i do feel we as an industry have come a full circle - from being a fully integrated agency model in 90s to everyone moving towards being specialists (creative agency vs media planning agency vs media buying agency) and now again back to real integration with breaking down of those silly walls/boundaries!!
Anyways once again, great write up! :)
Edward -- great piece as always. Love question #1 What is the future of advertising? This should be a must interview question also. I want someone to talk to me about companies like Amazon, Google, Apple and Microsoft and how they are reinventing communication.I want to hear them talk about the transformation of commerce. It is amazing and disappointing as very few senior people can really articulate this and means that they are not curious enough.
With primary or shared responsibility for areas such as sales management, product development, distribution channel management, public relations, marketing communications (including advertising and promotions), pricing, market research, and customer service, CMOs are faced with a diverse range of specialized disciplines in which they are required to be knowledgeable.
You left off diversity. But who cares most advertising agencies aren't diverse.
Al:
You are absolutely correct in that diversity should be added to the list. And unfortunately you are correct that it is an industry wide issue that some of us are trying to change, though clearly not with enough success yet. In fact, next Monday I make a keynote address in Minneapolis and realized that almost all the examples and people in my presentation (references to industry leaders or creators) are virtually all white men. I am white. My family is not. I am aware (to the degree possible for a white person, limited I admit) of the underlying prejudice that exists everywhere along with the lip service to do something about it that is rarely backed up with action. Thanks for this comment, whether it's really you or not; it has been a vivid reminder of our obligation and responsiblity.
The agency diversity issue is far more complicated than most people realize because it not only has to do with unintentional yet inherent issues with race but even greater is the issue of economics. I wrote a blog about the issue here.
Mario - good suggestion. I've had a go here:
http://bit.ly/98ZhAf
Great questions !
It gave an idea to write an article on 5 questions an agency should ask a CMO, to test if the agency should engage in an RFP or just give that customer up.
Mario
Interesting topic. Edward, I'd be curious to know if Zappos made you go through a similar assignment, given the recent focus on their own culture in The New Yorker and this article in the New York Times: http://tiny.cc/Qb0Fo
Well, the article in the Times says it all. They check out the people, their personality and the compatibility with the Zappos culture which is both remarkable and real.
As always an interesting and thought provoking read and particularly pertinent to a company like ours that finds itself in larger pitches. On the theme of the future...A question that should be asked is for real who will be working on my account and why? That upfront communication seems simple enough but it is surprising how many times I have heard horror stories surrounding this issue
Michael Ferdman
and Subba I share your wishful thinking
Thanks, Michael. Wishful thinking is the first step...
.-= Subbuu00c2u00b4s last blog ..The liberal side of the digital world =-.
A relationship is a two-way street. While I love the questions that you have raised, would it be wrong of the agency to ask equally important questions of the client? For example, what in your opinion constitutes a great creative (idea)? Or what has been the boldest decision based on intuition (and not on drivel from research) that you have taken?...
I know what I am suggesting is unlikely to happen. But it is a wishful thinking....
.-= Subbuu00c2u00b4s last blog ..The liberal side of the digital world =-.
Good points. And yes, we and, no doubt others, ask questions of this nature. More agencies probably should. However it's been a buyer's market for a while now, so a lot of agencies are put in a situation where any piece of business is good, even to the point of compromise. No doubt this is what CP&B would do. But few agencies, even the big ones (based on who and what they pitch) are in such a position. Fodder for a different post.
Great to hear that you do ask such questions. The intention of these questions (to the client) is not to put them in a spot but to create a conversation around the fundamental issues of the agency-client relationship. This way there is no (over)expectations leading to disillusionment. Looking forward to your post on this matter.
.-= Subbuu00c2u00b4s last blog ..The Tao of Fail =-.
All great questions, and I'd like to build on pt.4 " You told us that your agency specializes in many disciplines. How are you going to get them to work together? For example: You have a design group, interactive team, promotional group, brand planners, etc. That's a lot of people, with different viewpoints and ego's. Whose going to be responsible for leading and defining my brand, while making sure it's consistent throughout all applications?
A question that any client should ask. So far I've had one who did. And actually went so far as to declare that no agency had it figured out. I think I got him to believe that we had it 50 percent figured out. One of the things we've worked on is redefining the creative team so it includes social, tech, UX, and connection planning in order that people actually avoid defaulting to the expected ad solution and instead think in terms of a platform, program, community or experience that makes more sense. Hard but doable.
Thanks for your Reply Edward. It's definitely a challenge for agencies and unless they're prepared to restructure and reprogram their staff, they will have great difficulty addressing.
Edward, all good questions and I don't disagree with anything in the comments either. It would be hilarious to be the proverbial fly on the wall witnessing the parade of agencies stumbling through this test.
One thing nags at me though. In order to know the right questions to ask, the CMO him/herself must also have an enlightened POV, and have it supported by the corporation - and I actually wonder more about the likelihood of that than an agency's ability to say the right thing in a chemistry setting.
Too many business leaders and therefore too many CMOs still think in a top-down, command and control way. It's still the safe choice. Change needs to occur high-up on the client side before agency businesses will really do much more than pay lip-service to the idea that companies are in business to understand and serve consumers. And it's unlikely those changes will come from the CMO. He/she has too much to lose from junking the status quo.
Great post and great comments. I especially love the point that you make, Edward about hiring an agency's future, not their past - so important in these rapidly shifting times. As a marketer currently working with a full service agency, I'd add one more question (borrowed from Teresa Taylor of Qwest) that both the potential agency and the potential client should be asking: "If I called three people who have worked with you, how would they describe that relationship"? So often I find that the quality of the relationship ends up impacting the quality of the work. And as Taylor points out in her Corner Office interview http://bit.ly/4oXDUi, you are likely to get two positive and one negative examples, all very telling.
I think the question about the creative team is a great one. Should give you a lot of insight into what kind of ideas and innovation you're going to get from that particular agency.
I would also want to know how the agency is structured and how they manage projects. Does the agency allow it's lead developers to be client facing when it comes to producing/managing tech heavy projects? Or am I going to be working through a more traditional account manager (no background in tech development) no matter how tech heavy my project is? The answer is huge when it comes to communication and efficiency.
Your point regarding the definition of the creative team is a good one. That label is a carry-over from Bernbach's creative revolution. We are now living/coping with the media revolution. That's lead by planners and strategy. All CMOs should be looking for planners and strategists as integral to the creative process. Thanks for this. I enjoy reading your thoughts.
I'd add this question:
"Which agency (other than your own and not within the same holding company) is doing the most effective work today? Why? And, how do you define "effective"?
.-= Tom Cunniffu00c2u00b4s last blog ..The Digital Future of Magazines? =-.
Tom,
A good one, too. Hope that some CMOs read the comments and not just the posts.
Edward, I would add one more thing to this list. Not sure how to phrase it, but i think a question about principles of management would be key. My last full-time gig -- before my head injury took me out of the game --was with an agency that did not have clearly defined management principles. There was a lot of talk about flatness, etc., but actions were different, and as an ECD and a key part of the management team, my ability to motivate and inspire suffered, because my criteria for good management were different from other key managers. We had no shared principles, really. In fact, I would say that advertising in general suffers from a lack of appreciation for good management. Talent matters, yes, but the environment in which that talent works matters more. This is why all star teams are never as good as actual teams in sports!
Jeff
.-= Jeff Shattucku00c2u00b4s last blog ..Interlude: a song revisited after more than 20 years. =-.
Jeff:
Well put. I think that in some cases it's part of culture. For example we always talked about rights and responsibilities and collective entrepreneurialism, both of which informed a management style as well as our standards. An agency should BE a brand if it claims it can build them.
As someone responsible for writing these documents, I more than appreciate your guidance and pray this finds its way into the right hands. The future focus and measurement of innovation is the most important piece, agreed. I actually wrote a similar post about this today.
Here's another question:
Have any of your ideas ever failed? What did you learn from that?
.-= Gretchen Ramseyu00c2u00b4s last blog ..Quit Your Job =-.
Gretchen, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the question about failure. In my experience, the excuse was always something to do with the client messing things up or even the general US population being too stupid to get it.
Ad agencies do not like to look back -- except on the awards they have won -- and failure analysis means looking back through hard eyes again and again. It's a MUST.
Jeff
.-= Jeff Shattucku00c2u00b4s last blog ..Interlude: a song revisited after more than 20 years. =-.
I like that last question. Have also seen questions about what work in the marketplace you wish you created. Tough questions from a prospective client give me greater confidence in the client.
Right. I've also had to respond to the question about what work you respect. Funny, that question, because there is so very much to respect out there dpending on its purpose. I always find it a tough one to answer just in the selection process. Also, regarding the failure question, it shows an agency is willing to take risks and innovate, is willing to allow failure. It proves a philosophy of creative innovation exists.
.-= Gretchen Ramseyu00c2u00b4s last blog ..Quit Your Job =-.
The answer to the last question is that everything is an ad. How good your WAP and iPhone site looks is an ad. How your social media sites are put together is an ad. What your business cards look like, is an ad. If you want someone to think outside the TV/print box, just ask them to do just that. Why be coy? Everything you put out into the marketplace is an opportunity, and an ad.
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