In-house marketers need to learn how to brief
Before agencies are gone for good.
Us versus them. Agency folk versus the in-house marketers. What's previously felt like friendly banter seems to have turned sour.
Client spend is down, redundancies are rife and brands are turning to freelancers and micro agencies for help. As agencies quietly question, "Was it something we did?", I wonder how long it will be before brands are drunk dialling their former partners, begging for another shot – only to discover the phone line’s now dead.
Who's to blame for this latest break-up?
"That's too expensive. I don't need Head of Design input on this job. The campaign was launched late and didn't produce any leads. It's obvious your mind is elsewhere. You never take me out for dinner anymore."
Brands are unhappy, and have been for a while. But beyond the usual complaints, a new one recently caught my eye. And this one felt below the belt.
A CMO I came across on LinkedIn recently shared:
"Here's my beef with ad agencies. They do SO MUCH rework. [...] I don't have six months for you to try to “immerse” yourself in my brand. [...] But a lot of agencies won't do the work until you pay them to do the “strategy.” [...] I don't want to pay them for strategy. The brand is responsible for the strategy. [...] Every time I work with a new agency, I get so unbelievably frustrated. It’s so expensive, and I feel like I don't get what I need most for the money.”
Despite brands expecting agencies to work with them in partnership, this behaviour is rife. It's the equivalent of saying, "I already chose the decor. You might not agree that it's right for the room, but shut up and paint because I've promised to have it ready by Q1."
Like it or not, agencies are judged on results. When they're limited to working with a "strategy" they didn't develop and the work tanks, CMOs don't question whether their strategy was wrong. They expect money back or move agency. You can hardly blame agencies for insisting on strategic input.
According to the Better Briefs Project, 78% of marketers think their briefs provide clear strategic direction, whereas only 5% of agencies agree. And, of the creative agencies asked, 83% described client briefs as 'unfocused' ('Topline Global Report', 2021).
As marketers, we've lost the ability to brief clearly and create marketing strategies that succinctly define the problem. Instead, we ask for brand awareness campaigns that also drive leads. Or social posts which contain all 12 of our key messages – because they're of equal importance. Spoiler alert: they're not.
Rather than enabling agencies to spend our budget developing solutions to a key issue, we hijack the creative process and use it to figure out what the f**k we actually want. Because "we'll know it when we see it".
Yet marketers continue to point the finger at agencies - demanding more from them but giving little back.
Are agencies so innocent?
In-house marketers don't have the budgets anymore to bear inflated fees and overly complicated processes. They're under pressure to move faster, deliver more and prove their worth. Sound familiar?
But beyond rebranding as 'agile' or 'reactive', agency processes have stayed largely the same. No matter how small the task, they want a creative director in the room to check the output. No matter how stretched the media budget, they'll pitch ideas that 'push the brand forwards' and 'challenge the business to think big'.
Agencies have committed the cardinal sin of marketing. They've stopped listening to their customers.
And now they're facing a more challenging economic climate.
Profit pressure from the top trickles down. Account managers are held to ever-stricter processes to ensure projects run cost-efficiently, all the while being told to bring work in faster and at a higher value. And it's the client who suffers.
The knee jerk reaction is to squeeze more from existing clients. Add a few hours of project management time here, a little bit of strategy director input there. Standards slip, costs rise and the time from brief to delivery increases. In that light, why would any brand want to work with an agency? Where's the value?
To quote our unhappy CMO once more:
"I want to pay an agency for the outside creative talent I can't afford to have in-house."
Agencies shouldn't be the place to generate marketing strategy. They should be the place to access incredible talent, address a challenge from a broad range of perspectives and plug technical skill gaps.
But a lack of strategic marketing skills in-house has forced agencies into a corner. They can't work without strategy. And if it isn't coming from the brand, it has to come from them.
Cue posts from in-house marketers promoting the use of nimble freelancers instead. Because god forbid they’re the problem.
The grass isn't always greener
As a freelancer myself, it seems odd for me to advocate for agencies over freelance support. However, as a former account manager, I know only too well the pain of trying to piece together multiple freelancers who all adhere to different processes. Far better to bring them in for specific challenges than create a Frankenstein’s monster of an agency yourself.
So, before you pull the trigger on your long-term agency partner after a mere few flirtations with freelancers, I suggest you take a hard look in the mirror. Are you really the catch you think you are? Or have too many years of being wined and dined given you an inflated sense of self?
According to Dr Grace Kite's post (via Jon Lombardo), the UK has one of the lowest proportions of trained marketers in the world. It's an issue that needs fixing, fast. And I believe it's the root cause of current agency-client grievances.
Brands. It's time to train your marketers properly because on-the-job learning isn't cutting it.
In-house marketers need to know how to develop clear, concise strategies. Not a 60-slide PowerPoint of value propositions and personas based solely on opinion. It's time to stop hiding behind "the agency got it wrong again" and instead make sure you know how to brief them effectively. Because the work will only ever be as good as the brief you write.
There's still a place for a strong agency-client relationship. Like any relationship, however, it takes compromise. Hammering your agency to deliver more with less, and demanding they use your shoddy strategy rather than doing their own due diligence isn't the path to reconciliation.
Agencies are where creative talent cuts it's teeth and hones its craft before going freelance. Without them, your new sexy talent pool will soon dry up.
So give them a proper chance and sort your strategy out before it's too late. Because believe me, there's nothing more frustrating than needing to fix a massive leak, only to remember you sacked off the last plumber you worked with for being too thorough.