"Outstanding clients get outstanding work" is something that one has heard often enough.  No, we are not talking of ‘outstandings' here, but about the ever so rare quality of demanding, getting and approving superior work.  Why do so few clients have this admirable trait? And what can the others learn from these few.

Treat them right

Smart clients treat their agencies, well. Very well.   Several years ago, I remember my colleague speaking with great fondness and admiration of Ponds (as it used to be called then).  He had been a trainee then, carrying banners to the sales conference at Goa.  Imagine his surprise and delight, to find a car waiting for him!  Most agency types know what it means to be unhonoured and unsung.  And when they are treated well, they rarely ever forget or stop talking about it.  I can, for example, never forget talking about the former Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu.  I was the Director, Southern Operations of a large agency and we were waiting to present to the CEO of Cyberabad.  We waited and waited.  We were being extremely well taken care of but no sign of the big man.  He finally came 2 hours late, profusely apologetic saying "I really hate to make people wait" and did something that I have never forgotten.   He went individually to each one of our group of four (including our star struck management trainee) and apologized.  Used as we are to dealing with clients who think it is their God given right to make agencies wait, this sort of behaviour from someone whom tycoons are willing to wait for, made a profound impact.  Don't you think the advertising agency will go that extra mile for a client like this?  I certainly would.

Respect their ability

This was probably in the early 90s, in the heydays of MNCs entering the country.  Some of them were busy slotting India as country no. 172 and were already talking about 50% market share.  One such person had come from Germany.  The ground literally trembled under his feet if the expressions of Indians working there was any indication.  Our big team went to present the advertising campaign.   We had done a scratch jingle and set up the equipment (grundig spool tape et al).  I gave an overview of the situation and the strategic perspective and requested my Creative Director to present the creative.  He gave his rationale and switched on the tape recorder to play the scratch jingle.  It must have played for 10 seconds before the big man said "stop".  We looked at him confused and he said, "switch it off".  I said "Excuse me", he said "Stop, we have research in Germany to clearly say that jingles don't work in the detergents category".   I said that this was India and song and dance works and Chitrahaar held people spellbound.  You don't win arguments with stubborn clients.   We collected our equipment and left.  I never took any more meetings with that client, leaving it to my junior colleagues.  And more than a decade later the brand is still floundering.  Strong client agency relationships are built on mutual respect.

Motivate the agency

Marketing managers are very good at motivating their own team.  They train them.  Counsel them, appraise them and promote them.  And yet the agency sadly enough is viewed as an outsider.  Very often it is "ours" vs. "theirs".  Just see how client and agency sit in a conference room.  "The other side of the table" permeates to body language, thought and action.  Truly smart clients know that a creative, strong agency can make a major difference to their brands and their own careers. Great advertising is the surest way to push your career graph up as a client.  Let me end with one simple question.  As clients, you do customer satisfaction studies to continually monitor how customers feel about your brand or service.  Why not extend that to your agency as well? How motivated is your agency?   You might find that a difficult question to answer.  Address that question.  For your own good. 

Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO brand-comm. feedback can be mailed to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
 

Issue BG64 July06

Related Items:

---

Be first to comment this article

Only registered users can write comments.
Please login or register.