Good creative is not enough to succeed
When you win in creativity, you lose in relationships, or so goes an old advertising cliché. It’s true, however, that while you can’t succeed in marketing without great creative work, clients relationships are equally important. The relationship with the client should grow into a meaningful partnership between people and companies for brands to be successful over the long term. The following explains why:
A brand must be nurtured
Time is a vital factor in a good partnership. Turnover of staff in companies has increased in recent times, and average tenures of agency-client relationships have decreased. Rebooting a brand every few years lessens the capability of that brand to retain consistency and continuity of promise.
A brand is co-created
Agencies exist because brands need them. The worst thing an agency can do is to robotically produce generic, uninspiring work that consumers will be blind to. What need to happen is that agencies and brands partner together on a campaign to reach a single-minded strategic goal. These sorts of deep partnerships are about alignment and sharing the achievement of the brand vision.
It is normal to make mistakes
Everyone needs to realise and recognise this fact. Never failing means you are simply not trying. Everyone needs permission to be wrong from time to time, and commitment means making space for failure. Commitment also means creating the opportunity to create breakthrough, courageous work. One of the great things about the digital age is that the online space enables low-cost, quick experimentation. It suits learning because it is an iterative process. Look for chances to become uncomfortable, because that is when extraordinary ideas occur, although there is no guarantee that you will have success with it immediately.
A brand is emotional
Advertising and marketing attract emotional types of people because they are businesses driven by emotion. The best relationship between agency and client is one connected by the very best of human emotions and potentialities – free dialogue and communication, permission to make mistakes and trust. Encompassed by a meaningful sense of purpose, these are the qualities we want to build a brand out of, so it makes sense that our partnerships should contain the same attributes.
A brand is built through care and passion
These attributes are crucial for brand success. Marketing is a business of emotion, as we have said, but it is also a business of ideas. There should be nothing rote or mechanical about creating or working with brands, or working with each other. The drive needed to create the next breakthrough must come from the enthusiasm of both sides of the partnership.
Most people know that better work comes out of a partnership that is built on trust. However, in a digital world where consumers are fickle and our attention spans are shorter, fewer people are prepared to remain loyal to anything, including employers and brands. That’s why building stronger brand-agency relationships is more important today than it ever was in the past. Through this commitment comes the atmosphere needed for great, creative work.
