I saw an interesting idea on Michael Gass’ blog Fuel Lines, “Clients want leadership not partnership.“ This got me thinking.
Clients are often so caught up in short-term results, and the tactics that drive them, that they don’t have the time for, nor will they fight for the funding, to invest in strategy even though they will readily admit, if asked, that a sound strategy would both improve the efficiency of their tactics and their effectiveness. Leadership is important. It can come from the agency or from the business, but it needs to come from somewhere and generally speaking I don’t see it coming from either.
Agency margins are razor thin so it’s difficult, especially for the corporate agencies, to invest in the talent with the knowledge, confidence and communication skills required to lead clients day to day. Much show biz at the beginning of the relationship, and possibly once every year or so after that, when the agency heavy hitters make the big presentations but then, since the client is so focused on tactics and isn’t paying for senior support, thank you procurement, the agency work drops to junior staff.
Seth Godin, in his book Tribes suggests that everyone can be a leader. I’m afraid I have to disagree with Seth and agree with The Ad Contrarian; everyone isn’t creative and everyone isn’t a leader. Business leadership requires experience, which comes one day at a time, and junior staff, in both organizations, don’t have the experience to lead effectively nor are the organizations set up to reward them for leadership if they were capable.
Business needs to change its perspective. Business leaders needs to insist on, encourage and celebrate strategic thinking. They need to put it in the budget. They need to pay their agency for it. Does your marketing budget have an R&D line item, a testing budget? Does it have funding allocated to experimentation? I would be very surprised if it does. I’m not living under a rock, I know the economy is in sad shape, but did your business ever have a line item for strategic initiatives? Again, I would be surprised if it did. Well, it should.
Hip Shots
- Now is the time to avoid the insanity trap. Invest in strategy while everyone else is ringing their hands.
- Insist on and reward fresh strategic thinking from your team and from your agency. Doing the same things again will not get a different result.
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