Message in a Bottle....for MR Clients
The gap between MR Agencies and Clients is one of the major ongoing challenges we have as an industry. Whilst not specific to MR, a healthy client-supplier relationship is critical to improve productivity across the value chain.
Are we closing that gap - what's the anecdotal evidence?
A blog post by Mark Earls recently on the AQR website recounted an experience from a previous IIEX highlighting the totally different world views clientside MR folk have from Agency ones. A chasm in outlook and priorities.
More recent experience suggests that there is reason for ongoing concern - my hypothesis is that MR clientside folk can, dare I say should, do more to foster more partnership-style relationships with their suppliers, who can help them access best practice, new thinking, unblinkered perspectives and simple excellent analytical stuff.
Here's my take for those clientside folk among you.
1. Take Time To Explain your Decision(s).
One major gripe of Agency side folk lies in the area of commoditization, often within the context of a triple bidding process.
Having put a lot of thought, time and effort into crafting a proposal (let's assume that's the norm ;), had a re-briefing session, thought creatively about possible design options - receiving one of of the following responses can be deflating:
a) Out-of-office message - on the RFP deadline day, from the main project sponsor.
b) A rejection message saying "thanks for your proposal. We decided to go with another agency" - full stop. No further explanation given.
The impact on the Agency is negative in different ways, one confirming that the tough timeline wasn't the whole truth, the other frustrating potential desire to improve for the next RFP.
It isn't good for a healthy relationship, and is broadly counterproductive: word travels, markets talk.
2. Open Up
It's essential for Agencies aiming to add more value to understand how their insights will likely impact an organizational structure - so that an activation strategy can be tailored accordingly.
Not all client side organizations are willing to share their challenges, changing structures, goals and aims - but doing so is beneficial in many ways: the Agency is more involved, motivated, and becomes a sort of extended insights-arm.
Keeping schtumm is in certain circumstances necessary - NDAs can be cumbersome - but it's again counterproductive. Agencies engaging in monologues is particularly unwelcome if there is little apparent chance of a dialogue as the clientside folk are very quiet.
So look for ways to help Agencies who lean forward to add more value - offer shadowing, organizational updates, high level info on specific internal challenges. Everybody is busy, prioritizing is likely the issue.
3. Own the Follow-Up
MR projects never really finish - unless they're very tactical, or something went wrong. Even when companies switch focus strategically through the arrival of a new CEO for example, strategic issues don't simply disappear, they're invariably just postponed.
Keeping Agencies abreast of what actually happened as a result of a project helps the partnership grow - new cuts of the data can be suggested, follow-up webinars with different stakeholders organized, even follow-projects.
The conversations that arise will inevitably (!) foster the sense of partnership which is so critical to the future well-being of our industry, and to the ROI generated by individual MR projects.
So to wrap up: whilst it's true, as I suggested in a talk a few weeks ago to a German MR Industry Association, we absolutely need to celebrate our client side MR folk energetically, support them better, we equally need to ask them to take an active leadership in managing the MR chain, acknowledging and articulating need areas that external suppliers can fulfill better, keeping the drawbridge firmly open rather than withdrawing into client-only sessions at conferences.
Echo chambers can be curiously misleading places.
Curious, as ever, as to others' views.