Your Agency's Clients Deserve the Truth -- Can You Handle It?

Digital Age Will Force You to Give Up Pseudo-Science and Rules of Thumb

Posted by Tom Martin on 03.27.09 @ 12:15 PM

Tom Martin

Why people do what they do -- whether buying a product or following a leader -- depends on a variety of contextual variables that simply cannot be formulated into a set of universal rules. What is the effective frequency? Hell if I know. But it probably isn't three-plus mentions for every single brand in the universe and every single target audience. By the way, ask yourself if you even know where that little gem comes from? If not, Google it and read the backstory. You might not be so quick to throw that one out in your next client meeting. Some really stellar science there -- not.

You see, the real answer to most advertising questions is, drum roll please... "depends."

But rather than just fess up and be honest and push the client to do the necessary research, testing or whatever, we have developed our own lingo, processes and "rules of thumb" to create the illusion of logic in our world. Unfortunately, unless Mr. Spock and his Vulcan race take over the world anytime soon, logic is seldom going to be a primary driver in any decision process. Don't believe me? Go check out the latest fMRI work going on today or talk to Gerald Zaltman up at Harvard. Is the science perfect? No, but seems a lot stronger than a focus group result.

It's time for a little positive disruption in our world. For 50-plus years, we've had it pretty easy. Spend a lot of money, beat enough consumers over the head with a message and sales will respond to the point of keeping you and your client employed. Bad news. Party is over folks.

All around us are sharks. There are the strategy sharks, the digital sharks and our newest competitor for the client's ear -- the social-media sharks. These folks didn't grow up in our reach and frequency world. They grew up in the metric world of digital, numbers and business geeks. While we were debating the aesthetics of design, they were applying technology in new and innovative ways to spark new conversations and connections with consumers. Additionally, they speak the language of ROI and common sense. And not just their "account service" folks -- everyone at every level talks metrics. They get it. They understand that it doesn't matter what they think; only what they can prove. But enough of the "A Few Good Men" quotes; let's talk about how we're going to fix this situation we now find ourselves in today.

Depends.

Here are my suggestions.

1. If you aren't yet, get really digital, really fast. Don't just hire some kid out of college that knows .NET or PHP and talks of something called Cold Fusion. No, go find one of those really expensive geeks that has been in the biz for a while. Then get out of their way.
   
   
2. If you aren't yet, get really strategic. Teach your creatives to think like CEOs and, more important, how to sell their work using a business case vs. making a creative recommendation.
   
   
3. Question everything. Take nothing at face value and don't let your client do it either. Acknowledge that there is no universal truth and test everything. Then follow the science not your heart.
   
   
4. Embrace data analysis. It holds the key to your future.

~ ~ ~
Tom Martin is president of Zehnder Communications, with offices in New Orleans and Baton Rouge. He can be reached at Tom.Martin@z-comm.com. Or follow him at @TomMartin.

20 Comments

  By chrbutler | CARRBORO, NC March 27, 2009 01:56:20 pm:

Tom,

I enjoyed this post for it's blunt honesty. We've been partnering with creative agencies to help them build websites and applications for years now, and have seen exactly what you're talking about- not just from our clients, but also in fearing that we, too, could be perceived as the sharks. Of course, we're not sharks. Our goal has always been to freely educate anyone who is interested in listening as to how to understand what's happening online. Your suggestions are right on, though I would offer an amendment to #1: Getting digital shouldn't just mean getting someone who is digital and then getting out of his or her way. "Getting" digital, especially for creative teams, needs to mean "understanding" how to design for digital application. Much of what is sacred to print does not work online, but without a proper understanding of what can and cannot be done online, the design process can be a confusing and painful one for everyone involved. Our last newsletter was on this subject (http://www.newfangled.com/differences_between_print_and_web_design). Also, #4 will be bigger than any of us can imagine within the next couple of years. We all have a lot of work to do to get up to speed on it. - Chris Butler, Newfangled Web Factory

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  By Tim | Ward Hill, MA March 28, 2009 12:31:10 pm:

Excellent article! You speak the truth, but the smoke and mirror (or is it snake oil sales) folks among us will still continue to woo and wow clients and win accounts. Why? Most clients and prospects I have had the pleasure (?) of working with and pitching over the last 18 years enjoy the pretty pictures, the free gadgets and "clever" ideas the traditional agencies pitch. "Creativity" is just so much more fun than "strategy."

Maybe because I came from a business and media background, my firm has always made the case for balancing creativity (art) and strategy (science). My best prospects are those businesses I say "I told you so" to about a year after the agency that beat us in the first round is shown the door. Maybe rubbing prospects' noses in it doesn't seem like a great strategy, but it is a differentiating element that works.

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  By Steve | Scottsdale, AZ March 28, 2009 01:07:22 pm:

Ah, the most holy and exalted language of "common sense." If that is your divining rod for human effort and engagement, particularly in a marketing context, then you must inevitably admit that most consumption of products and services is excessive and wrong-headed. Today our economy, our entire culture, is reaping the fruits of a "common sense" computational approach to existence. Pardon the gut impression, but I am unimpressed...

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  By Keith | Palatine, IL March 28, 2009 01:07:45 pm:

Tom: the only thing you may be full of is common sense. It's been over a century and the industry still has yet to come up with a solid (if not bulletproof) means to link advertising's effects to purchase behavior. Before I open up a 'shock and awe' of backlash, we have to admit what we do have is still not great.

But now along comes the digital age, and many marketers/their agents are still looking at awareness, intent, 7-point scales, etc. We have the means to utilize end behavior (digital proof of transaction)and link it back to marketing efforts. Even simple experimental design (think test and control with/without stimulus) would bring many marketers that much closer to understanding how their efforts do/n't work. Your no's. 1 - 4 are all valid - those that embrace them will come out ahead.

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  By Steve | Westmont, IL March 28, 2009 01:51:47 pm:

Tom...great post. IMO your #2 and #4 nail it. That is where the traditional agency model falls apart.

The problem is that those 2 areas are something you cannot teach. Either creatives have it or they don't. That is why agencies need to make the hard choices and reinvent what they do.

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  By Now | New York, NY March 28, 2009 03:07:32 pm:

The NIKE Swoosh Symbol is the single greatest ad campaign in the world,in my opinion.Whether it's on Maria Sharapova (or her opponent) @ Wimbledon or Federer OR Nadal or on Yankee Catcher Joyge Posadas shoes behind the plate,it's so small,so simple,so that you wouldn't even notice it. But EVERYONE notices it everywhere all the time.Here's the kicker.The only advertiser to BRAND A VISUAL (except Apple'sapple w/abite out if it) ALSO has the best WORDS I"ve ever seen in advertising: JUST DO IT.Nike is Perfect Advertising.Few brands are even in the same galaxy.Why is this?Larry Brown,Adsimple,East Hampton,NY(Great warning,Tom,about the sharks.Reminds me of all the people (including me) who got burned by "Webmasters" in the DotComBoom,because they said they knew and you knew you didn't know.

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  By mediablogdotcom | Singapore March 28, 2009 03:28:33 pm:

I always say nothing like a good collapse and meltdown to slap flock upside head and get their attention.

Back in 2003, I stumbled on a book by Donald Schultz call IMC. At the time CFO had not yet become CMOs. They were too preoccupied shooing the banks who wanted to lend them money away.

IMC (or integrated marketing communications) was never meant to be an advertising or marketing bible - but a way to show how the various company and marketing processes could long tail down to a single outcome called Customer Value (or ARPU).

Sometimes the easiest and more obvious things, are the hardest to figure out.

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  By dcsw | BELLINGHAM, WA March 28, 2009 04:40:13 pm:

And the skies parted and a light shone down on Tom Martin: "You get it, my Son." said a voice on high.

Dramatic? I think not. To boot, you're willing to be honest about it. Your clients and future prospects will reward your frankness and willingness to not fall back on the same tired aphorisms that have plagued our industry for too long.

Can I get an Amen.

David Wiggs marketinghitch.com

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  By mebo | NY, NY March 28, 2009 07:18:25 pm:

agencies will be rendered obsolete

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  By craigcooper | craigcooper.com, NY March 28, 2009 07:39:00 pm:

You are bang on about the "it depends" aspect.

What you left out is that the digital world is as full of bafflegab as the analogue.

Try measuring web site traffic with two different analytic tools. You get two DIFFERENT sets of results. The holy grail of metrics in the digital world is filled with the same ol' snake oil.

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  By markferdman | Brooklyn, NY March 28, 2009 07:51:52 pm:

The headline alone is enough to choke me up with emotion. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, thank you, thank you, and thank you.

And CMOs, the secret is out! You don't need to accept bullshit and you know it when you smell it. There are alternatives.

I'm particularly interested in this because I'm one of those "expensive geeks that has been in the biz awhile", 12 years.

The agency world is not only full of shit to their clients, but on the whole have been abusing us geeks since we appeared on the scene (for me 1997) and to no fault of our own started earning a reputation as a threat to your business.

Instead of embracing us, you muscled, lied, cajoled, smoke screened, and the whole while never learned a thing. At least a dozen years have passed and it looks like the walls that you built are starting to crumble. Now you're scrambling to get a clue about this stuff?

A shame you didn't just let us in to help you. A shame that on the whole you've been paranoid, ignorant, and worst of all, arrogant.

So, please, please listen to Tom. If you don't get it, if you don't understand, please defer to those that do, that have earned the knowledge by doing it, by experience. We don't bite, and we're happy to teach you everything we know along the way.

Really. We are. We don't necessarily want to try and steal your business unless you give us no choice. Everyone's got to eat and you've already got all the clients. We got the know-how. So isn't it a win-win?

Have some respect for us, huh? You kind of need us. And we'll remember those of you that didn't.

Freedom + Partners
www.freedomandpartners.com

(shameless 2.0 plug)

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  By pashby | Weston-s-Mare March 29, 2009 08:50:30 am:

A very interesting article, Tom, one that encourages me to attempt to contact you directly. However please allow me to comment on the above. Whilst going in the right direction not enough was said of the total lack of attention to the real meaning of the word "Communications" after all a message sent is NOT a message received. Agencies have, for years, led us up a one way street of "creativity" when the fact is that creativity is not, and never has been, the sole critian for successful communication to take place. The existing system was never in place to really help clients it was designed to extract enough monies to make media moguls and some Agency people very wealthy individuals.
In my recently published book "Television Killed Advertising" I detail just where we have all gone wrong in the past and that there is already a fully accountable,far superior, method of Marketing Communication,available. It also publishes in some detail the results of a considerable investment in independent research that establishes that just one exposure to this programme is far more cost effective that the inefficient reach & frequency model so beloved of the highly inefficient advertising industry.

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  By Steve | Toronto, ON March 29, 2009 04:35:47 pm:

Good stuff, Tom. Like the movie itself, the Nerds will get their revenge while the old school Frat guys (both agency and client side) will be left hung-over from a keg party that was pushed too long... It's a fact that the web offers unlimited potential for creatives and real time actionable metrics for clients - so Oscar, guess what, if you want to meet your rent payments, it's time to shack up with Felix!

Steve Johnston, Second City Communications

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  By Tom Martin | NEW ORLEANS, LA March 30, 2009 09:42:40 am:

To all - thanks for the robust comments. Honestly thought I'd see more push back than support here. And on a post that pushed out on a Saturday no less ;-)

Question to all of you: what should the next post in this series be?
@TomMartin

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  By sschandler | Nashville, TN March 30, 2009 10:19:25 am:

Tom -

I am ready to give you the "push-back" you desire. Wait, I can't. You are spot on. How many times have you been in a room with multiple account service people and whenever a client asked the difficult question, the most senior one butts in to give the "it depends" answer. I always wonder if clients can smell the stench.

Now it's time for traditional agencies to wake up a smell the money as it heads to more ROI-driven marketers. Interactive shops will be getting more-and-more business and doing more work traditional agencies wish they could be doing (or feel it is their God-given right to do).

Nice post Tom. Go get 'em!

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  By swalters | Grosse Pointe Park, MI March 30, 2009 11:17:01 am:

Tom,

Great article. It seems creative agencies go full circle, repeatedly-- bringing in analytic groups to measure performance of campaigns and associated ROI and then expelling them as superfluous, too expensive appendages when revenues are down. Rather than retaining these groups when revenues are down to fine tune and calibrate their marketing strategies to optimize the media mix, media spend, and increase ROI, creative agencies tend to 'circle their wagons', marginalize the 'geeks' or expunge them from the agency all together. As revenues continue to fall and clients are lost, the agency ask "What happened?. What can we do?".

Competing agencies need to demonstrate to clients that their marketing campaigns work and are generating ROI and that these results can be repeated over time. This comes from having a strong analytic department partnership with the creative agency. The question is should they be built into the agency's structure or outsourced?

Face it guys, you can't 'live' with the analytic geeks, but you can't 'live' without them.

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  By erikrwagner | Cherry Hill, NJ March 30, 2009 11:42:26 am:

Tom,

Really enjoyed the post today.

Recently listened to a member of Mindshare's digital team speak at a conference. In following with parts of your post, he said they've eliminated 'I think' from conversations and largely begin with 'the data suggests.' Subtle but effective difference.

Twitter - @ErikRWagner

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  By Rozzie | BETHESDA, MD March 30, 2009 01:49:58 pm:

The smartest digital marketing folks I've come across are those entrepreneur-type grinders who know what they are trying to achieve online and are willing to constantly be test mode, and those whose industries have really been transformed by the web and are fighting to keep up (I'm thinking travel, transactional finance, some retailers).


When I've gone to pitches from agencies , usually not a single person in the room knows what's like to be responsible for KPIs of a digital marketing program over the course of say, 2-3 fiscal years, or how to define business processes required to support their creative.

The flip side though: The problem with all this data is that few seem to know what in the hell to do with—or they start wanting to react to every piece that comes across the table.

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  By jongoldfuss | Washington, DC March 31, 2009 01:42:15 pm:

The lesson learned from Wall Street is crystal clear: if you hear, "it's too complicated for me to explain," then it's probably B.S. Agencies have lived with their own twist of this, "it's too intuitive for me to explain." It's no less B.S, and I'm excited for the end of it.

Agencies are groups of people. The most valuable people are those with problem-solving skills, not "answers." Will clients hire the pitch that says, "we have the people that will help you figure out the solutions," over those that say, "we already know the solutions?" Let's hope so, because the latter are full of it.

Jonathan Goldfuss
Red Bird Marketing
Twitter: RedBirdMkt

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  By PhillB | Chicago, IL March 31, 2009 07:15:28 pm:

Very logical but not so simple to execute. Certainly, it would be great if more companies and their marketing partners put into practice what you have eloquently discussed. But corporate culture and ingrained business practices often slow the pace of adopting new marketing practices. Perhaps, this will incite action.

That being said, I do agree with your perspective and believe that the current Digital Revolution is changing marketing for the better, especially the use of analytical tools. While it is still a very new frontier and online marketing is evolving as fast as technology can be developed, it has changed messaging from being one way, directed and controlled by marketers to being multi-directional: business to consumers, consumers to consumers, consumers to businesses.

Phill Barufkin

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