You learn a thing or two as the managing director of an advertising agency. Like what makes a good agency tick. Like what motivates good people. Like how it feels when the agency’s heart is in the right place. I was fortunate enough to be given temporary stewardship of such …
A friend of mine asked me to start an agency with him last week. Drink was involved. So it wasn’t a serious conversation in terms of real intent. But it did get quite serious in terms of terms. Under what terms would we seriously consider it? Here are mine. Not …
Thanks to Neil Perkin for curating another highly topical, highly relevant, highly provocative Firestarters event on behalf of Google. And thanks to Mel Exon, Martin Bailie and James Caig for providing said provocation by way of three alternative views on The New Operating System For Agencies. This is not a …
Three little words. Not those three little words. These three little words. “You’re the experts.” When a client says these words and means them, they might as well have said “I love you”. They might as well have said “I love you” because “you’re the experts” has a powerful emotive …
Nobody likes being sold to. Being sold to reduces that chances that you’ll actually buy. So creative teams that urge account people to “sell” their ideas are misguided as well as patronising. When it comes to helping great work see the light of day, the role of smart account management …
In the name of “doing the right thing” many clients run their pitch processes on a “level playing field” basis. It is good that they care about doing right by the pitching agencies – many don’t – but that care is misdirected. A level playing field approach means that all …
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsRpXZML5YU] I watched the R/GA presentation on The Way Forward for agencies in the same week that I’d presented to the marketing department of a famously engineering-led company. In both companies the people who make the giant leaps, whilst all around them are taking small steps, are the engineers and …
