by Judy Neer
8. July 2009 04:24
In these economic times, it’s hard for any agency to turn down a new business opportunity. The article, “Agencies Bend to Client Whims”, Adweek, June 29, 2009, illustrates what agencies are willing to go through right now for new business and discusses three client run agency reviews that are currently underway. What were these clients asking for in the RFP? Are they reasonable requests? The article has a link to the RFP from Zappos.com.
Obviously, any prospect is going to ask for basic agency information, experience and creative samples. That is expected. What seems way out of line to me in this particular case is that the client is asking for creative ideas from agencies before they even meet with them. This seems like a ridiculous exercise and a waste of time and money. In fact when agencies provide too much “thinking about a client’s business” before meeting with them, we often hear our clients say it is premature and presumptuous to think the agency could know what they are facing. And that is in the Capabilities Round when fewer agencies in the mix, not at the RFP stage with a larger group of agencies.
We’ve evolved our review process to allow for multiple exposures with the client before the agency presents creative ideas. Our clients like the ability to see what it will be like to work with the agency. They like to provide a briefing on their business to them. Then they evaluate: Does the agency “get” their business? Can the agency come at the problem from more than one direction? How well did they take input? How well does the agency team work together? Yes, the agency must be able to develop great creative, but not by shooting in the dark.
I think these clients are asking for too much, but more importantly not asking for the right thing to make the best business decision necessary.
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