Clients are to blame too – senior marketer
Published: Dec 07, 2005
Singapore - When ad campaigns do not achieve the desired business results or when client-agency communications break down, client organisations tend to put the blame on their agencies, but at a recent Marketing Peer Briefing session, M1’s Adeline Tiah said that clients need to shoulder some blame too. “It’s the same in any relationship -- clients should also look at their own internal and communication processes before pointing their fingers at the other party,” said Tiah, Assistant General Manager of Marketing Communications at M1. “To operate at a high level of excellence, you need to take responsibility for the outcome of any communication and I would say the same for the agency as well.” Agreeing with Tiah, Sorab Mistry, Area Director, South and SE Asia for McCann Erickson said, “Principally, when something goes wrong, clients have to realise that they’ve approved the agency’s recommendations -- it’s a joint responsibility -- credit should be shared, and so should blame.” Steve Castledine, VP for Levi’s Brand at Levi Strauss & Co Asia/Pacific echoed similar sentiments. He said that the development of advertising creative is a collaborative process, and “for a client to turn around and blame the agency if the work doesn’t perform seems rather shortsighted -- the whole idea of ‘blaming’ someone or a group for the outcome is also not in the best interest on the client/agency relationship.” At the session entitled ‘Pitch Perfect? Lessons Learnt -- A behind the scenes look at the ad agency pitch process’, Tiah also mentioned that while it is “good” that agencies want to win awards, clients want results. She proffered tips for companies looking to select an ad agency: visiting the agencies and paying attention to their furniture as a rough gauge to their charges, making sure your company has a fixed a set of criteria to evaluate the agencies by, and having a panel of the company’s senior staff -- including an objective Director of Engineering perhaps -- evaluate the agencies after the pitch.