The scuffle sparked a worthy discussion about the relationship between brands and their external partners.
How do we foster mutually-beneficial relationships based on collaboration, mutual respect, and the drive toward producing innovative work?
There are four good takeaways. The first three are quick, the last one a bit meatier.
1. The Client/Agency relationship is rooted in respect.
I’ve sat agency-side for the past 15 years. I can tell you that the work crumbles without trust and respect.
Agencies need to trust that their client is the expert on their business and their customer.
Clients need to trust that their agency is the expert on creativity and knowing what will work best.
It sounds straightforward, but a successful partnership starts with recognizing one another’s talent, contribution, and that we’re in this together. Whether it’s pitch day or a regular Friday working session, we show up wearing your jersey, not ours.
2. Know the details before you congratulate or criticize.
Speaking on something--good or bad--without all the information can negatively affect your organization. Brian's misinformation spurred a public PR misfire. So much so that others had to hop in to help him squash it.
We’ve all had our work feel invisible when our boss thanked everyone else on the project team but left our name off the list because they weren’t aware of our contribution. It sucks.
We’ve all wanted to be invisible when we critiqued someone or something without all the information, only to discover our view was inaccurate. It sucks.
Take the extra minute to get the facts straight.
3. Don’t chase the credit.
Recognize the contribution everyone makes in creating something. Great work is a collaborative effort. Sometimes it is the work of your internal teams coming together to create magic. Other times there is an outside vendor involved. And sometimes, it was your terrible idea that sparked the great one from someone else. Your work mattered! You still share the trophy.
4. The execution matters more than the idea.
This is the big one.
Agencies deserve recognition for the great ideas they bring. And it turns out multiple agencies pitched Coinbase on creating a QR code-related Super Bowl ad.
It is natural for people to come up with similar ideas and conclusions when surrounded by the same stimuli, staring at the same tools, reading the same trade press.
It’s not theft. It’s common.
Innovation starts with an idea. The true magic is in the execution.
Fight for your creative ideas. But let’s not become so proud that we forget the idea is just one piece of a much larger puzzle. We must become more obsessed with properly executing great ideas than simply having them in the first place.
Your brilliant idea is worthless if you can’t activate it.
How do you activate a good idea?
👉 Put your audience before the tactic.
Should your brand be on TikTok? Do you need a billboard? To find out, I will ask you a series of questions to clarify your audience, goals, and reasons for being.
Who are you trying to reach, and what are you trying to do?
Your target audience is most important. We need to understand their wants, consumption habits, and what matters to them.
💪 Pick a dominant content distribution channel.
You want to be everywhere, but your content must be rooted somewhere.
Make your dominant content channel one that you own: your website, your blog, your email list, etc. Renting attention is good until it is not.
The Coinbase Super Bowl ad directed people to a promotional website they owned where they could access full analytics. Good. (Then their app crashed. Bad.)
Pick one channel and focus all your attention on building that audience. Review what’s working and what’s not. Get dangerously good at it. Once you do, add another channel.
Should you ignore all third-party platforms? No, but they should support and drive back to your dominant one. Water your garden first.
🤘 Have meaningful KPIs
Your KPIs will be tied to the things you are working to accomplish.
- To build another lead generation channel
- To strengthen a specific marketing campaign
- To increase brand awareness and reputation
- To shorten your sales cycle
- To improve customer happiness
Develop the KPIs that show how close or far you are from achieving it. You know what’s not on that list, things like “be good at social media” or “increase followers.” It’s not that these items aren’t important, but they should lead to more significant ROI-tied objectives.
Once you identify the metrics important to your business – know how you’ll track them. Create the formulas and the baselines you’ll need to know NOW before the interaction starts.
🙌 Reimagine content
Real talk: most of us use the same marketing tools to reach our audiences as our competitors. This can make it difficult to stand out. Executing better means thinking of new ways to innovate using these tools. How can you flip the tool on its head to make it work better?
This is where brands and agencies can do incredible things together.
Your Super Bowl campaign doesn’t have to be a story-driven :60 spot.
It could be a gamification of an experience that lets you play catch with your favorite LA Rams player.
Your social media campaign doesn’t have to be a series of boring text-based posts.
It could be a pasta cooking time playlist.
Just because you’re known for your golden arches doesn’t mean you can’t change them up. That's a burger.
