Clients Aren’t Idiots

If clients are idiots, what were they when they hired your firm? You are vital to our process. We cannot do great work in a vacuum. You know your business. We know marketing. We need each other to be successful. It’s as simple as that.

You are smart. There, we said it! You have a lot to offer to us. Some of your suggestions make sense. Why would we want to sequester ourselves and work in a vacuum? And just because we don’t see eye-to-eye on every issue, doesn’t make you wrong and us right. It doesn’t miraculously turn you stupid. It’s your money, and ultimately, your decision.

Clients Are Often Right

Enough said. See, we told you we weren’t for everyone.

Clients Get the Work They Deserve

When an agency does great work, who gets all the credit. The agency, right? We believe you deserve the credit; because the same agency, and even the same people, working on a different account, will do varying levels of work. The difference is the client. The difference is you.

Good Clients Are Born, Not Made. What Makes a Good One? (By the way, this is what we would expect from you!)

A good client:

  • demands and inspires great work.
  • does not accept mediocrity from its partners, nor its own employees.
  • agrees in advance to the metrics by which the work will be evaluated.
  • agrees in advance to the time frame after which the work will be evaluated.
  • actively participates in the process.
  • demonstrates mutual respect.
  • can commit to a shared vision.
  • provides and accepts complete honesty.
  • views marketing as an opportunity to have a major impact on the business, rather than as a risk to be avoided at all cost.
  • provides all the information, and access to all the people, necessary to understand your total business.
  • treats the agency as a partner, not an outsider, not a supplier, but rather, like one of their own.
  • takes some reasonable and educated risks.
  • oh yeah, two more things
    • returns phone calls in a timely manner!
    • picks up a lunch or dinner check once in a blue moon.

If all you get from your agency or marketing firm is ads – kick their sorry asses out of your office.

Ads are a part of an overall integrated marketing strategy and effort – not the result of it. But since most agencies are adept at doing ads, then that is what you get in one form or another. It’s about more than ads. It’s also about pricing, customer engagement, research, database analysis, sales tactics, and more. Ask yourself the last time your agency helped your sales team develop customer communications or handed you three ideas for a sales promotion without you asking.

If you hire an advertising agency then you can expect to get…ads. But what if you need advertising as a part of something bigger – oh, something, say, like a cohesive, integrated marketing program that actually has revenue goals, objectives and expected return? Well, then you’d just better get your mind right and listen to the creatives who tell you what you need – because what you need, are the ads they are trying to push on you. If you are ever in a meeting and an agency creative says, “I’m already seeing the ads…” then you are getting a glimpse of your next night terror. You have to begin with the business strategy that has clear, results-based metrics to drive the marketing. Notice, we didn’t say, the creative.

Creative Awards Are For Narcissists. EFFIES are for real professionals.

Most of the awards that the industry bestows on itself miss the point…by a galactic mile!

There should be only one award bestowed on an agency (or in our case, a marketing re$ultancy)…and that is, an EFFIE. The EFFIES are awarded to the agency and client for jointly developing ideas that work. Wow, now there’s a concept!

Only the best ideas win. That means an insightful strategy, outstanding creative, and most importantly, the market results to prove it worked. Any form of consumer engagement is eligible to enter. From print to TV, to packaging design to guerrilla, to digital, to anything that drives revenue.

It is the only award that recognizes the most significant achievement in marketing communications: effectiveness.

Too much creative lacks the necessary anatomy to be effective: balls and backbone. We have both…much to the delight of our spouses!

It seems that most clients are given the following sucker’s bet…no-win creative options:

  1. boring, but strategically brilliant campaigns (no balls), and
  2. sophomoric creative, void of any strategic underpinning (no backbone).

Most creative is either dreadfully dull or inappropriately outrageous. To work, an integrated marketing campaign must provoke a response. But it has to be the right one; one that will create customers for life.

If you force the agency to do boring, but strategically on-target ads, they’ll consider you an idiot, and your efforts will go largely ignored in the marketplace. If you allow the agency to do outrageously provocative, but strategically bankrupt ads, they’ll consider you a hero. But you’ll also fail in the marketplace. Oh sure, brand awareness may go up. You may even get your picture in the trade mags. But you won’t succeed where it really counts…in the marketplace.

Creativity Is Where You Find It

An agency with a fixed creative staff leaves you at the mercy of the flavor-of-the-month mood of the creative department. It also leads to junior creatives, and even some seasoned creatives, with little to no relevant category experience, working on your account. You end up spending an inordinate amount of educating the agency’s teams. In the end, you get mediocre creative that you had to massage significantly in order to raise it to the level of mediocrity.

At the Marketing Resultants Group, we match the best freelance creative talent from all over the world to your particular marketing problem. This way you can be assured of getting people who are not only brilliantly creative, but brilliantly insightful about your category and your business.

Our creative bullpen has a world view and the experience of some of the best agencies, media firms, strategy and research firms, new product development companies, public relations companies, design firms, and production companies in the world.

We don’t play it safe…we play to win!

We’re not for everybody. If you’re one of those “play it safe”, nervous Nellies who wants to pursue the same old tactics and approaches that keep you on the safe course, then we can give you the names of some award-winning agencies you’ll grow to hate. If you want innovative approaches that cannot be ignored or dismissed, and get results, then we’re the group you’ll grow to love.

We’re Relentless.

We’re in it for the long haul. We don’t’ stop until your business objectives have been achieved. It’s not about finishing an ad. It’s about growing revenue and accomplishing your objectives.

We’ll Take a Chance.

You take a chance every day in business…so do we. We’ll be willing to share that risk and even defer some of our compensation or work with an accomplishment goal set forth for us. When was the last time your advertising agency did that? Hell, they make you pay up front, don’t they? If they are so sure about their work and ability, then why don’t they put their money where their work is?

We Like to Get Our Hands Dirty.

More sales and more traffic means more than just clever ideas and well thought out strategies. It takes a dedicated well-oiled machine to execute the strategy flawlessly. It’s all about being able to execute on a tactical level. It’s not glamorous and often goes unnoticed, but its work that pays off and will win your company more sales and you more promotions. Ask yourself the last time your agency got involved things like wayfinding, lead reengagement, or created a system to respond to leads in real time.