Imad Kublawi is director of IK Consult and MENA partner for Agency Assessments International
“I have spent time on all three sides of the advertising triangle and witnessed its 3D perspective: on the agency side, the client side, and as a qualified pitch consultant with my UK partners, Agency Assessments International.
My first and lasting observation is that neither clients nor agencies pay enough attention to connecting a brand with its consumers. Instead, clients are happy to have squeezed the agency, and vice versa.
Clients have their own vulnerability in terms of meeting their marketing objectives or responding rapidly to competition or simply keeping their jobs. Those who grow t
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Great article, couldn’t agree more.
‘Relationship’ is a dirty word here because it’s been abused and corrupted.
Clients seem scared of building a relationship in case people think there’s more to it than a desire to work with an agency that does great work, gets results, makes them look good and makes the process stress-free and fun along the way.
I’ve watched clients defending why they’re using an agency that isn’t the cheapest. I’ve seen them pretty much go on trial and witnessed their fear while trying to prove their innocence. I’ve been ‘in the dock’ myself proving the value of using an agency with expertise vs a low-rent alternative. But how can it have come to this?
It seems that there would only be one dark reason why a client would use a more expensive agency.. how sickening.
On the other hand, I’m also bemused that clients in this region rarely request value added services.. (monthly planning meetings / developing their marketing plan/briefs / meeting with their other agencies etc), they don’t really like retainers and don’t seem to set any service levels.. they seem happiest when the agency is kept at arm’s length and given prescriptive briefs (usually with a quote as the first action) – and no agency likes working like that.
In my experience, the best work happens when you spend time with your clients, are able to really get under the skin of who they are and how their business really works. You need to know everything they’re doing and why they’re doing it and you definitely need honesty, integrity and trust – on both sides.
Everyone loves a good pitch – it’s why we do what we do – but it needs to be entered into with accurate odds, and it really needs to start with a level playing field. So the No Pitch Pitch sounds like a great idea to me and something any agency worth its salt would be happy to take part in.
great article, it’s all true and unfortunately all those cracks you mentioned are highly toxic individually, however it seems that several are in play almost all the time.
Before I start, I need to declare that I have known Imad Kublawi for may years. I know him to be incisive, pragmatic and an invaluable asset to agency, to client (and most importantly)to the brand.
There is much in his article with which I agree. I agree that “Many pitches are a waste of time, money and resources.” I agree that “Pitches often fail to solve the client’s problem.” I agree that “The pitch has seriously harmed day-to-day agency professionalism.” I even agree that “the missing link in the marcoms industry in this region: relationships.”
Where I part company with Imad, is with his list of cracks. In itself the list is fine, but I would suggest that these are symptoms not causes of the problem. The problem is entirely with Imad’s “Missing Link”; the problem is with the overall relationship.
Now if I’m right, then rather than bandage the broken relationship with a No-Pitch Pitch, I would spend time and effort in understanding why the relationship was breaking down in the first place; I would spend time in getting the agency to understand how the client perceives their agency, and as importantly how the agency perceives their client. And I would go further, I would seek to understand how the agency perceives itself; and how the client company sees itself as well.
When you look at these perceptions you can see if there are any disconnects. In these disconnects lie the roots of the relationship break up; and once the root causes are identified its far easier to fix them.
Now I believe this to be a logical approach as its far better to “manage” an existing relationship than start a new one. But for this approach to work both clients and agencies will have to step off their pitching merry-go-round, and think long and hard about their existing relationships with each other.
The fact this article has been shared just 4 times is criminal and in fact a pretty good indicator as to the ignorance some agencies have towards what else is going on in the industry in this region.