It is amazing how most marketers can tell me how much thay have spent with their agency in the past 12 months but few can say what they got for that spend. Sure, they can describe the services provided and perhaps even the resources, but not the amount of deliverables.

This is like me saying "I spent $5000 last year eating out at restaurants and had a great time". But does this mean that I ate out twice at $2,500 each time or did I eat out 500 times at $10 each? Or did I have a three course meal each time, or just an entree or a degustation menu of 20 courses?

See, how much you spend does not allow you to determine value unless you have a measure of deliverables. This can be executional outcomes, project types or even results.

Instead of simply focusing on the spend (which is important) marketers should also capture volume and type of work to be able to calculate value. Agencies and marketing should have rigourous reporting protocol to be able to measure value.

It is like when clients' ask us to benchmark hourly rates. This is useful in a limited way. The problem is that low rates can be over quoted and so represent false value. Also, hourly or head hour rates need to be reviewed in the context of the total remuneration and more importantly outcomes and deliverables before you can determine the value being delivered.

Can you determine the value of your marketing communications providers, or simply the cost?

Author: Darren Woolley

I have been asked thousands of questions but only a few have stopped me in my tracks, like the project managers who asked "Is it possible to change the lead talent in post production?" after their General Manager saw the offline of their latest commerncial and hated the talent.

A media colleague of mine told me that they were once asked in all seriousness, "How long is a 60 second television commerical?"

Well Carolyn Hall from the RAC in Perth has sent me to a link to a blog called "Adverbatims" which lists some really great quotes like:

"We need this to look really amazing - it's really got to stand outand wow the client. But the budget is small so don´t spend any time working on it."
(Agency, Account Manager to Designer)

In a perfect world, if there was no Christmas, when could we launch?"
(Client to Creative Director complaining about the production schedule because time set aside for the holidays and agency/office closures conflicted with their desired in-market date)

That's nice, but what happened to the online extension of the blue key visual?" - "Uh, we... we didn't do that one. We did the red key visual only, because blue pixels are heavier to download."
(Conversation between Client and Art Director)

Concept 1 is approved. Although why don't you show me something that incorporates concept 1 with concept 3 and uses the headline from concept 2? Make the logo bigger like in concept 2 and the copy larger from concept 3. You guys did a great job, you are right on target with concept 1."
(Client, Brand Manager)

There are loads of great verbatims there. The question is "Are they real?"

What do you think?

Author: Darren Woolley

Having graduated with a Bachelor of Applied Science and worked in medical research at the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne for six years, I was well trained and grilled in The Scientific Method.

The scientific method is the best way yet discovered for winnowing the truth from lies and delusion. The simple version looks something like this:

1. Observe some aspect of the universe/process/environment.
2. Invent a tentative description, called a hypothesis, that is consistent with what you have observed.
3. Use the hypothesis to make predictions.
4. Test those predictions by experiments or further observations and modify the hypothesis in the light of your results.
5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 until there are no discrepancies between theory and experiment and/or observation.

When consistency is obtained the hypothesis becomes a theory and provides a coherent set of propositions which explain a class of phenomena. A theory is then a framework within which observations are explained and predictions are made.

The Scientific Method is core to the P3 role in measuring and improving efficiency in the marketing and advertising process.
Because while I agree with Bill Bernbach that "Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art" I also agree with sociologist and media commentator Leo Bogart that "Advertisements may be evaluated scientifically; they cannot be created scientifically."

That's why our role at P3 is to provide knowledge, information and advice on the process and not the creative concept. It is the advertiser who is paying for the concept to decide if this is the right concept for their business / problem / opportunity.

Author: Darren Woolley

Managing an advertising review or pitch, it is often interesting to see how the agencies relate to you as the pitch doctor. Many agencies, and in fact many advertisers, incorrectly think that P3 selects the agency or at least recommends an agency in the pitch process.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Our job is to assist, manage and facilitate the process so that the advertiser can select the best possible agency provider for their needs.

At some point in every pitch the advertiser will ask me "Which agency would you choose?" and our answer is always the same "We don't have to live with the choice, you do". Therefore when asked to choose an agency we will then work with the advertiser to help them structure their thinking and their emotions or "gut instinct".

There are set and agreed criteria that each agency ios judged against and on the basis of which the agency is successful or unsuccessful. There are non-defined emotional criteria that the ganecy is also judgeed against.

Our task os not to tell the advertiser how to think and feel, and is not to make recommednations on who to choose. In selecting an agency it is our job to assist the advertiser so they can choose the right agency for thier needs against the criteria that is important to them.

Author: Darren Woolley

I ran into a client on Oaks Day at the Flemington Races last week. They were having a terrific day in one of the media proprietor's marquees in the Birdcage, but for some reason the discussion soon turned to work and especially the current state of their relationship with their advertising agency and agencies.

The big "What cheeses me off" for this marketer is the fact that their agency is typically running 20 minutes late for every meeting, sometimes up to 45 minutes late. So here is the marketing team sitting in the meeting room waiting for the agency. There can be three or four people from the marketing department waiting 20 minutes, that is 1 - 1.33 head hours wasted waiting for the agency.

I asked them how did this make them feel? Typically, the response was that the agency consistently running late and leaving them waiting made the marketing team feel like the agency didn't care and had no respect for their client's time.

I commented that this was funny, because I usually find that it is the marketeers that are always running late from back to back meetings. As I have commented on in previous posts. In fact it has got so bad that I have two rules:

1. If I am going to be more than a few minutes late I will call ahead to advise of my revised estimated arrival time (often met with surprise as apparently few people bother to demonstrate this level of integrity)

2. If I am left waiting more than 15 minutes without a reason or a request to wait I leave, leaving behind a message for my appointment to call to make a new appointment. (Even if this is potentially major new business, it is not worth working for anyone who shows such a blatant disregard for the value of your time).

Having mentioned that I find it is usually marketeers that leave suppliers like myself and agencies waiting, the client I was talking to confessed that no matter how late the agency is, their boss, the head of marketing is always later.

The funny part of their story was that the agency always apologies for being late, even though clearly they are not so sorry that they change their ways. However, the head of marketing never apologies. It is possible that this is their way of asserting their position and at the same time wasting everyone else's time.

Next time you are waiting for someone who is running late, why not say to them on their arrival and after their glib apology "when you are late it wastes my time and I feel like you are not taking this process/project/job seriously or showing enough respect/care/thought for me and the team". Then lets see what their reaction is.

Author: Darren Woolley

Very occasionally an advertiser will develop a rapport with an agency team that leads to them convincing that client to follow them into a new agency that agency team are setting up and become their foundation client.

While we understand that the marcomms category is a "people" business there are some inherent dangers in doing this.

Effectively what the advertiser is doing is "bank rolling" the creation of a new advertising agency, design company, media agency, PR company or the like. The key word here is "Bank Rolling" for the following reasons:

1. As a foundation client, you will be paying all of the establishment and on-going overhead costs of the agency in their fees. After all, if you are the only client initially, then to be profitable all of the company's costs will be covered by you or it will quickly go out of business.

2. While intention is for the new company to grow and add additional clients, this is usually at the expense of the initial reason the advertiser entered into the new arrangement in the first place - ie. To continue to work closely with the team they had the rapport with. As the principals of the new company their time will now be spread over a number of clients as the company grows and adds clients.

3. Okay, so it doesn't grow and you stay their foundation and only client. How long will you tolerate paying all of the overhead costs for the existence of the company. Also, if they do not add new clients, then the only growth will come from getting more of your business or increasing their rates.

4. So you give the company more of your business to provide growth and yet they still do not add any major new business. Suddenly you are in the position of having most of your eggs in one basket and now your interest in the agency is more to make sure they continue to thrive rather than deliver the best possible service because if the business fails you have to lift your whole business out and onto a new provider.

5. As a company with only one major client or only one client it is harder for them to attract and hold good people because most marcomms professionals are attracted to variety rather than working on the same account day in and day out. So you may end up paying a premium to get the calibre of people you want and need on your business.
There is a track record of this behaviour and the subsequent failures of this. The highest profile example in recent times has been the Commonwealth Bank. Graham Ford drove a strategy of creating new entities IKON Media and 360 creative agency. Here is a 50:50 success rate.

IKON went on from strength to strength picking up new business and clients and building a successful media agency. 360 struggled to establish and major business outside the bank and closed when the CBA moved the creative business to STW. Interestingly STW was recently reported buying a majority shareholding of IKON.

But there are plenty of other examples were becoming a foundation client of a new agency has let the advertiser trapped in a unhealthy relationship.

Author: Darren Woolley