Getting the best work from your creative agency.

According to a recent report from global market research firm PQ Media, companies spent $732.89 billion on advertising and $897.69 billion on global marketing activities.^* That’s a lot of cheddar for something most people say they ignore.

So, here’s the question: How much brilliant, move-the-sales-needle creative work was produced for that money versus quasi-effective pablum and ineffectual white noise?

I recently sat down with Fortune 500 Client Executive and Global Marketing Expert Lisa McLaine to discuss the secrets of getting the best, most effective work out of creative agencies. This article synthesizes our thoughts from a company and agency viewpoint based on our combined decades of experience.

(Full transparency: Lisa and I have collaborated for over ten years and developed scores of winning campaigns, including efforts that have delivered over 3,500% ROI.)

When and why do you hire a creative agency? And what should you be looking for?

From the company standpoint, Lisa says, “You engage an agency for things you’re just not going to get internally. I don’t want to diminish the importance of internal creative resources. They’re incredibly valuable and fulfill many important roles. But on the company side, we’re almost always heads-down in our own work, focused on our own industry … we just aren’t exposed to what people on the agency side are seeing.

“And of course, one main reason I engage an agency is for bold creative work that grabs attention and gets results. If an agency doesn’t have that, I’m not interested.”

The value of perspective.

According to Lisa, “When you hire an agency, a big part of what you’re paying for is perspective.

“Agencies are developing ideas for all different kinds of companies and industries … they’re exposed on a daily basis to what’s actually working. And the people we work with at BlackWing Creative judge multiple global award shows every year. The agency is always sharing insights with me from those competitions … telling me what’s delivering results, talking about the most interesting ideas they’ve seen, etc. That’s a huge benefit.”

Lisa continues, “Your agency should also be adding value by asking tough questions you wouldn’t have thought of … pushing you outside of your comfort zone … bringing you big ideas you wouldn’t have come up with on your own … giving you insights about your competition you were not aware of. I don’t want an agency that checks the boxes on assignments. I want an agency that exceeds my goals by thinking outside the box. Or even blowing the box up completely. If you can come up with a way to shatter my KPI goals, that’s what I’m paying for.”

From the agency standpoint, clients get the maximum value from an agency when it’s able to think beyond the assignment at hand, explore strategically sound creative avenues that were not specifically asked for, and come back with work based on insights about the target audience or marketplace that make clients say, “Whoa. That’s powerful stuff. There’s no way we would have come up with that.”

What keeps agencies from delivering top creative work and value for clients?

From an agency standpoint, one of the biggest factors is the creative brief. The saying “garbage in, garbage out” is 110% true. If the brief is off, the work is guaranteed to be off. I could do an entire article about why the brief is so important, but here are a few essentials.

For starters, the brief should contain a short statement that sums up the single emotive takeaway you want to stick like glue in your target’s mind (the emotion part is critical). Then, all the support points in the brief must lead one to the undeniable conclusion that the statement being made is absolutely true. When the brief turns into a dumping ground for every product or solution sales point imaginable, it’s a disaster. If there’s fodder in the brief that doesn’t support the single emotive takeaway, shove it out the airlock.

Second, the key project stakeholders have to sign off on the brief before kick-off. There’s nothing worse than getting new/different input from stakeholders after creative concepts have been baked and presented. No one wants to hear, “We think this is off the mark.” New input is almost always a recipe for failure, frustration, and change orders.

From a client standpoint, Lisa says, “The brief is critical. And I’ll give you a couple of reasons why. For one, it makes me really stop and think about things from the potential customer’s standpoint. Companies have a tendency to just start speaking to themselves … eating their own dog food. The brief forces us to figure out what’s actually going to resonate with people and motivate them. And it helps us form the golden thread that’s woven throughout every piece of our communications.

In any size company, there are always people who have opinions … and I’m just being very candid, some of those people will have the right experience to give you opinions, and some won’t. So, if I own a project, I have to figure out which stakeholders I need buy-in from, and include them up-front so things don’t go sideways.

Where do the best ideas come from?

From an agency perspective, it starts with meaningful strategic insights. Once again, we could write an entire article on this, but in short, we always want marketing insights based on three things:

• What are we selling that the prospective consumer actually wants/needs?
• Is what we’re offering truly unique?
• Do we have verifiable facts to demolish competitors that make copycat claims?

Second, let the agency do the creative problem-solving for you. That’s a huge part of what you pay for. Your agency should be eager to tear into gnarly challenges and find solutions you can’t come up with. Companies get far more value for their marketing dollar when they give their agency big problems to solve, versus highly prescriptive tactical directives.

And one more: Don’t be afraid to go big. We always say don’t try to be everything to every potential customer. Be BIG at something. And GO BIG.

From a company standpoint, Lisa points out, “Sometimes marketing departments don’t even talk to their salespeople, which is wild to me. Marketing and sales should be working hand in hand. In my experience, marketing departments in a lot of companies just do what they want to do without consultation. And it does not go well.

“One thing I like about BlackWing is that you ask a lot of probing questions. Why would somebody want to buy? What’s the biggest pain point? What will make someone take action? And I know that over the years I’ve said things like, ‘Here’s why they would do it.’ And you say, in a nice way, ‘Really, Lisa? Is that really going to do it?’ And then, we keep digging until we get to the heart of what will drive results.

A favorite saying of mine — and I learned this many years ago because it applies to all matters, both personal and professional — is that change will never occur until the pain not to change becomes greater than the pain to change. If you want to motivate people, figure out what that pain is, and offer the best solution. Doing this is essential to success.

What does it take to build good chemistry and a strong relationship?

From a client standpoint, Lisa mentions, “Obviously, there’s accountability and the fact that the relationship can’t just be transactional. For me, good chemistry is built on working with people who actually care … partners who are invested in the outcomes of your work.

“And then you have to consider how you work together when things go sideways, because sometimes they just do. And if you have an agency that doesn’t get flustered, and rolls up their sleeves and dives in and works with you as a true partner to help you right the ship, you bond over that, and you become one team.

You also have to create a win-win working relationship. I’ve owned my own business and I’ve been on both the purchasing and selling side. And I always want my partners to be in it for the long haul. So, I never want to do anything that’s going to hurt my agency partner’s business.

“Time is very precious on this earth. I don’t want to spend that time working in a transactional way. Working in a mutually respectful way that builds lasting relationships matters to me a lot.

“Some companies can be very demanding, and push and push to get more work for less money. But that’s not a formula for long-term success. I always try to think, how do we make each other successful? How do we work together in a way that’s fair? I always want a high-performing team. And I want to work with people who are excited about what they do. And if the agency isn’t feeling that, it will come through in the creative work.”

From an agency standpoint, there’s the saying, “I can live for two months on a good compliment.” That’s definitely true with agencies and especially creative people. Working with Lisa has been such a great experience for our teams for many reasons. One is that Lisa is always positive, even when she’s not. Meaning, whenever there’s work she feels could be stronger, she lets us know in an encouraging way.

And then there’s the fact that Lisa does not hold back on the compliments. She’s effusive. And she’s also a champion for our agency within her organization. When we do great work, she shouts it from the mountaintop. And she never makes it about her. She always talks about what we’ve done together.

If you want to build a relationship where you’re a number one priority with your agency, especially if you’re not the agency’s biggest client, here are a few tips.

From an agency perspective, give your partners praise and recognition. Don’t be afraid to publicly promote their work. Be fair and transparent about budgets. Proactively acknowledge situations that warrant a change order. And go to the mat to sell through great creative work within the company.

If you do these things, when you send a panicked email at midnight about needing something the next day, folks in the agency will eagerly leap on it and move mountains to make it happen. And they’ll do it because you’re fair. And because you’re the client, they absolutely love working with you.

Why is doing great creative work not enough?

From an agency standpoint, everyone loves building awesomely creative campaigns. But producing creative for the sake of creative is a fast path to a losing client relationship. Of course, every company should demand work from their agency that delivers great results and strong ROI. But in advertising, it’s not uncommon for some agencies and marketing departments to use some pretty squishy metrics — like impressions, free media generation, consumer sentiment, etc. What matters is sales. Full stop. That’s why we develop every aspect of our creative marketing work with the client’s business case in mind.

We endeavor to make our clients look great not just in the marketplace, but in the boardroom. And we do that by compiling the most complete campaign results cases possible. People can have all the subjective feelings they want about marketing creative. There’s nothing subjective about verified sales and campaign ROI that exceeds 3,000%.

From the client perspective, Lisa mentions, “I think there is truly a profound secret in having a relationship where both the company and the agency are involved in packaging campaign results and showcasing that within the company.

“As a marketer, I always want more budget. The easiest way to get that is by proving you moved the needle big time, and selling the fact that if we have even more budget, we can do even bigger and better things.”

Teamwork really does make the dream work.

Any company-agency relationship built on mutual respect, collaboration, the freedom to personally challenge one another to find solutions, and a shared passion for results-focused outcomes has a foundation for long-term success.

With over $1.6 trillion being spent on ads and marketing every year, let’s all strive to do great work that delivers great outcomes based on great partnerships.

*AdAge: Why global ad spending growth is expected to nearly double in 2024