Agencies can’t deliver strategy!

Just before you lash out, it’s not me saying that agencies can’t deliver strategy, it’s the clients! 

Maximised is an independent Management Consulting Business that focuses on Agency assessments to help drive marketing improvements; and out of all the disciplines they measure: process; outputs; strategy; creativity; behaviour; finance; and inter-agency collaboration; strategy scores the lowest pretty consistently across clients and industries. And it is not marginal either, about 10% below the total average; it scores less then financial management! And that really is saying something.

This is an expensive agency offering and one that most point to as the thing that sets them apart and provides them with a point of difference. “If only”, the clients say! 

Big client

And it’s not as if there are no strategic people in agencies. It’s not as if the ones that are there have no knowledge or insights, actually quite the opposite. After all, Grey, Leo Burnett, Saatchi & Saatchi, FCB, Porter Novelli and Ogilvy affiliates in Nigeria, amongst others, have thrived from delivering strategy. So what then are the issues? Why is so much paid and so little delivered today? 

For starters, I will put these four thoughts forward for consideration:

Firstly, a lot of marketing communication practitioners don’t quite know what strategy is; everyone has a different point of view and all like to toss the word around to help persuade others that their suggestions are thoughtful and considered and therefore need to be taken seriously. 

Well this is not fiction, just advertising (is there a difference?); and very little that needs to be addressed can be done so easily. But that is the expectation, so as such when asked how insightful, effective and usable agency strategy is, many indicate that the magic wand is in fact just a stick.

Secondly, part of the definition of strategy is that it includes: Insights; it is Planned; it links to a Vision; it has Risk and Reward elements; and it is Deliverable.

Insights: As far as the current marketplace is concerned, insights are not the issue and there are plenty of individuals with great knowledge, supported by the research that can and does provide comprehension about the product; consumer; channel; behaviour; etc. No issues there.

Planned: In this environment! Where people are bobbing and weaving like ducks on our currently very full and overflowing dams. Where, with every change of person comes a change in view and attitude. Where immediate sales are number 1 with bullets aimed at those that don’t achieve them. Where ‘in real time’ is the catch cry? Planned! You all know the answer to that as well as I do.

Linked to a vision: When everything and everyone changes as rapidly as they do now, who can afford vision? Even if they do, who can hold on to it and see it through? Some of course, those that are supported by the whole business but they are rarer than award-winning ads.

Risk/Reward:  Well, let’s not insult anyone’s intelligence debating this. That is more than any job is worth. One tiny little risk taken that does not pay up and the bricks come falling down from the greatest of heights. So we had all better avoid risk at any cost.

Deliverable:  Okay, yes that is possible more often than not, but when the pieces above are missing, this becomes subjective and open to the qualms of any individual; but to budget; to time; or within the confines of the businesses capabilities? Often not!

Thirdly, when all is said and done, 9 times out of 10, what we are really looking at is a communication strategy (fair enough, that’s the game we contest) and that strategy, more often than not is there to support the agencies’ (media; creative; digital) recommendation and therefore is flavoured with self-serving sauce.

Another big spender

Anyway, regardless, the other very low scoring strategy question we ask is if the final work helps bring the strategy to life. Frankly most clients, when they see the final work, find it hard to see the strategic recommendation reflected in it. So once again, when considering the work, where the strategy recommendation is not reflected, that is seen as the strategy being weak.

And finally, often, marketing activity is undertaken in isolation, away from business direction and requirements. Under these conditions, how strategic can you be? Certainly it’s difficult to steer a boat without the support of the pilot or crew.

So, I await the salvos! “Surely, none of this can be right”, you’d say! Who is this person?! 

I thank you for reading, all the same.

AAAN members

Written by Peter Davis, Advertising, Marketing, Performance, and Relationship specialist. Peter is Founder/Director of Maximised.

Additional reports by ‘Dele Dele-Olukoju, Marketing Communication strategist, and publisher of the online Marketing Communication Digest. He writes from Lagos, Nigeria.