How to be a BRILLIANTagency

How to be a BRILLIANT agency

There’s loads of advice from consultancies and self-reflection among agencies about how to be brilliant right now.

Rather than navel-gaze or speculate, the team at

Ingenuity wanted to hear it straight from the horse’s

mouth: the brand marketers that buy agency services.

More useful right?!

By ‘a brilliant agency’ we mean the following: • Agencies that are great partners

to brands

• Agencies that get noticed for allthe right reasons

• Agencies that wow brands atnew business meetings

We interviewed top marketers from the brands right,

on the above points…

The most important people in this game are the clients

and that’s why we wanted to hear their viewpoint – no

one else’s.

The following fi ndings are a guide to help you become

a better agency across delivery and new business.

Enjoy!

:

What makes a great agency in your eyes?

“

“

Marketing Director, Stella Artois UK & Marketing Manager,

Bud Light UK & Ireland | AB InBev

I think a great agency is one that can understand my

brand’s challenges really quickly. Two things – understand

the soul of what a brand is and understand how that

brand should act, look and be. I’m looking for a deep

understanding of my brand, alongside making it relevant

in a way that is interesting and new – it’s pretty simple!

Mark Ritson talks about it a lot, he talks about ‘simple

strategy, complex execution’ and I think any agency that

can help us not only understand the soul, but also make it

ever-refreshing, ever-new every year and refl ected in every

campaign, is one that is a brilliant partner for us.

:

An agency that listens and can understand the brief

without too much explanation.

Creative agility is also really key for us – we don’t want a long-winded creative process – it should come naturally to a great agency.

““

I think creativity is a massive thing because we see a lot

of agencies that are quite traditional and come up with

fairly creative ideas but there’s nothing that breaks the

boundaries – so it’s all about fi nding an agency that can

do that.

Also, somebody that is totally on it. I need an agency

that manages me and badgers me when I forget to do

something. Don’t be afraid to challenge anything that we say as well, I think there’s a lot of agencies who take what you say as verbatim. I think finding an agency

that will say “actually that might not work, have you

thought about doing it this way” is key. Sometimes,

they’re too afraid to actually tell us we’re wrong because

we are a big brand and the power balance leans our

way.

On the back of that, it’s also important for them to be

honest. Obviously, you get some situations where they

haven’t quite told you the whole picture and don’t want

to alarm you – but if you have that upfront trust and

honesty, it’s gold.

European PR & Social Media Director,

Consumer products | Epson

We want fresh ideas – that’s the main thing. We also want exposure to multiple creative minds within an agency.

If you have the same creative working on your account,

you’re just going to get served up the same foundations

in a different light. So, in order to get things more left-field

and differentiated, open up the account to more people/

creatives for better results.

We want an agency that isn’t influenced by our views.

““

PR Manager UK & Ireland & Marketing Procurement | Fiat Chrysler Auto Group

How they see our brands is key, not how we see our brands. We know what brands we’ve got, and we believe in them and their performance, their desirability, their style – we want an agency that actually challenges us.

Educating us is something not many agencies might

think of – the market changes so quickly and people’s

perceptions change, we need to keep rolling and moving.

Allowing us to learn will make us value you more and

that’s when you really nail the relationship.

Get us to experience other brands. Some people have

been in the business where they’ve never driven another

car in the last 15 to 20 years. But actually, it’s good to go

and experience the different cars – it’s all about a refresh.

Data also plays such a massive part these days – we want

an agency that knows all about our customer and can fit

our brand straight into that. If your offering doesn’t some

way play into data evaluation (even the most creative

agencies) it will be hard to prove the ideas.

They solve problems for us. They come up with ideas on their own, they think ahead regarding what might go wrong and solve it in advance.

“

“

The key for me is creativity, responsibility and being able

to foresee and envision everything that might happen in

advance. The more they do the work without us having

to lead it the better – I guess the agency is an extension

of your team.

Product Marketing Manager | Google Cloud

:

What’s your view on how agencies What’s your view on how agencies What’s your view

approach you for new business? approach you for new business? approach you for

How do you go about fi nding How do you go about fi nding How do you go

them?

:

I’m actually really surprised about how many agency’s approaches are a generic email that sometimes doesn’t

even mention our brand… (these will get deleted straight

away!). On the other hand, some of them are quite

forward and follow up asking why we haven’t replied to

their email. It’s all about bespoke, bespoke, bespoke…

I think it’s outdated and a big waste of time sending out

blanket emails to as many brands as possible, believe

me, it still happens on a daily basis.

““

You’ll become less inward thinking and discover more

about what you can offer. Having good knowledge about

our brand is vital. If you’ve got a spare hour, you could do

some googling and create a bespoke email that opens

the door. The thing is, you never know who you’re dealing

with – I read every single email that gets sent to me. If

the subject line catches my eye, then I will read on. Make

the top line in the email strong and I’ll read the rest of

the message.

It’s just about being smart, as there is so much competition across the agency landscape. That’s the

thing, we’re so busy doing our day job, that we don’t have

time to spend a week brainstorming and coming up with

ideas. We need agencies, but ones that want our brand,

not any brand.

PR Manager UK & Europe & Comms Director | Betfair

You’re better off spending half a day, once a week choosing brands you actually want to work with – the exercise itself will help you develop as an agency.

“

“

For me, it’s about understanding the business and understanding what we do differently and how they can provide a service that’s bespoke to us – not just a copy and paste of what they’ve done for previous clients. They must actually understand our business and its quirks, then deliver something that’s unique to us that will also unlock our potential. I will readily respond to effort. People love effort on their part – it goes a long way.

In terms of how we go about finding new agencies, it’s

kind of a mix: sometimes we tap into our existing network,

including recommendations from internal teams or

teams we’ve worked with before, along with LinkedIn,

social, and even Google and search. Google for me would

be my last resort, however. Normally, I look for a

recommendation from someone I know and trust.

Global Digital Director | TIGI - Unilever

““

If they can show thought leadership, that’s a great way for an agency to get themselves out there, because we’re all looking for that. We really lean on our agencies for thought leadership. If you can really demonstrate it in a valuable way, that adds value to our relationship and our business, whilst challenging us to do things differently.

A big focus of ours is creativity; we just launched an

internal creativity award a couple of years ago, so it’s a

huge focus for us. We have a reputation as a sales lead

company, but we have to grow organically. We have to

go through our brand, so that’s a big focus for us and we

want agencies that approach us to be aware of this.

In terms of how we source new agencies we don’t

actually have a formal approach. In the five years I’ve

worked at the company, I haven’t seen a particular

standout process we’ve followed, that’s also why

Ingenuity’s services are so great for us. What I’ve done in

the past has been to think of a brand that I like and seen

who they’ve worked with. Literally via Google!

Marketing Director, Stella Artois UK & Marketing

Manager, Bud Light UK & Ireland | AB InBev

When they’re able to explain in simple terms what they

did and the results they drove as well as the impact it had

on the organisation – get to the point basically. When

they link it to some numbers or metrics, that impresses

me generally.

““

So, whichever agency who can link the work to tangible results will help open my eyes.

Also, creative ideas – people who have come up with

different ways to solve problems or address challenges

– this may be obvious but sometimes this isn’t explained

simply in a cold approach.

In terms of finding agencies for my needs, Google in

general works quite well (I know I know!) but I often speak

with others in marketing and ask them who they’ve

previously worked with. So, it’s mostly recommendations

and other marketers who have experience. Sometimes,

it’s also an agency recommending another agency too –

or networking with your own industry is just as good as

networking with clients.

Product Marketing Manager | Google Cloud

:

What do you look for when What do you look for when What do you

meeting an agency face meeting an agency face meeting an

to face for the agency face to face for the agency face

fi rst time?

:

Hopefully the agency would have researched our brand and would have tweaked the creds to refl ect that. It

sounds really simple, but it actually happened in the

last agency meeting we just had. What was so

impressive with them was that I got the feeling that

they really understood our brands, so they’ve clearly not

only researched but also tried to go that extra mile in

understanding us. It wasn’t that they spent so long in

pitching their ideas or anything, it was just perfectly

relevant to our brands. Do your homework basically!

Don’t just show us your ideas, but also explain how you got there. We want to know how you think through a problem and how you solve it.

““

It’s not just about the end result – end results are great

but it’s the journey in all honesty. We’ve spoken about

this a lot recently (as a team) for example, the idea might

not be right but it’s understanding how and why they

got there.

Marketing Director, Stella Artois UK & Marketing

Manager, Bud Light UK & Ireland | AB InBev

I think it is all about the chemistry and whether we can

work with them on a personal level. I also really look at

how mature (not age) they are, and for one good reason

– when the going gets tough and we need to give some

brutal feedback, we need to know we can have that

kind of conversation and they deal with it in a grown-

up manner.

“

“

European PR & Social Media Director,

Consumer products | Epson

I think it’s important you have an instant rapport with someone! That’s not to say that the ones we can’t

instantly imagine going to the pub with can’t deliver a

really great response to our brief – but in my opinion,

personal relationships are key.

Yes, I want to know who the agency is and what their

credentials are, but actually, I’m much more interested

in how much research they’ve done and what nuances

they’ve found in our challenge.

It’s showing real understanding – that you know what our

distinct challenges are and whether you are able to tell

us something that we don’t already know. I think you can

end up having a lot of similar conversations with

different agencies, which makes sense to a certain

degree.

But what we’re looking for, is an agency that's gone a little bit further to give us something that we haven’t already thought about. We can then go away thinking “okay, that wasn’t on the list but maybe it should be!”

““

Global Digital Director | TIGI - Unilever

:

ConclusionSo that’s it. Four minutes of your time spent reading, but hours saved on future work.

A few key takeaways to consider:

1.

3.

2.

4.

Tailor your approach – they want

bespoke, bespoke, BESPOKE.

Dedicate time each week to ensuring

what you’re offering each brand is

focused on their specifi c challenges.

Be confi dent thought leaders

– invest in getting your team’s

opinions out there. Make it unique.

Make it stand out.

Don’t be afraid to challenge the

clients – challenge them on delivery,

challenge them to think differently,

challenge them to take new

opportunities.

Creativity is crucial. Enough said.

:

We create new business relationships between Agencies, Brands and Tech businesses.

Talk to us:+44 (0)207 042 2900

New business enquiries?Contact Duncan on newbusiness@ingenuitylondon.com

Interested in attending our events?Contact Emma on events@ingenuitylondon.com

Want to join our team?Contact Lucy on careers@ingenuitylondon.com

Ingenuity London1 Maple Place

Bloomsbury

London W1T 4BB

ingenuitylondon.com