I have been in Marketing for 20years. When I first started, at a small agency just outside Basingstoke, Hampshire, the office admin was charged out at £80.00/hour and the general rule with print was 'double it'. It was extremely hard not to make money. I was billing £8K a month without having a clue what I was doing.
I went to a fascinating lecture up in London on "How to build a million pound agency" a few months back and I found myself flipping from laughing or screaming. The guy had no idea what it takes to run an agency in 2014. He'd done his thing 20years ago and was now 'getting into digital' - 10 years too late by all accounts. My advice would be "retire" - - you barely know how to use Word and a decent smart phone - how on earth can you truly deliver Digital.
The big reasons I set up Active Marketing (now www.oobacreative.co.uk) have come back to haunt the creative industry. They were:
On top of this, "Account" staff and directors would regularly say something took 4days when it took 4hours, double bill clients.... and were generally under-hand and would "sell in" shoddy creative work at any price - especially at the price of their honesty - oh... they slept like babies.
Disgusting behaviour.... all round. The trouble was that most clients didn't really know any better... but they had an inkling. No wonder our hero Bill Hicks had this to say:
This wasn't a one off experience. AND... based on the 8-10 agencies we've worked with in the last 5years, not a lot has changed. Our latest engagement with an agency (who had no technical capabilities what-so-ever but thought they could deliver websites) drove me to do something I have NEVER done before - seriously threaten to walk off the job mid way. What a total and utter disaster.
Average-to-shoddy work abounds.
And they were, are and always will be fed up with such behaviour. Hence why many clients come to us with the "You've been recommended for your honesty. I feel my last agency were taking the micky"... and they usually were.
Basically, clients don't want drawn out, overly expensive, shoddy, half baked creative any more that doesn't have a proper rational (might look prettier but it doesn't work properly!). They'd rather create their own half-baked creative, get it out the door faster, be able to amend it themselves rapidly when they get 'feedback' and save themselves a shed load of time and money.
Unless a business is large and/or is looking for something 'special', the idea of a creative agency that also does all the resizing and grunt work is dead. Clients want to have all that in house so they can quickly respond, not be tied in with an agency... and, most importantly, be 100% in control of their marketing.
We will be there to help. Whether it is about defining your value proposition, branding challenges, campaign idea generation or technical challenges for websites, apps etc, we will be there as a support team - helping train, coach and be a sounding board to help you avoid the many pitfalls that day-to-day marketing can throw at us.
We can save you from hours of frustration and show you how to avoid costly mistakes, how to best set up the studio processes - and up-skill your team to be operating at a level which will mean rapid marketing success - and not being dependant on external agencies that fail to be as professional as you need.
PS: I know some will disagree. But, if I flip the argument on its head and ask, "If agencies are doing such a good job, would we really be in the situation where more and more companies want to be doing it in house?". I don't think so. If agencies were masters of their craft and experts in their field, (and actually honest with their clients) companies wouldn't even have thought of doing it in-house.
I went to a fascinating lecture up in London on "How to build a million pound agency" a few months back and I found myself flipping from laughing or screaming. The guy had no idea what it takes to run an agency in 2014. He'd done his thing 20years ago and was now 'getting into digital' - 10 years too late by all accounts. My advice would be "retire" - - you barely know how to use Word and a decent smart phone - how on earth can you truly deliver Digital.
The big reasons I set up Active Marketing (now www.oobacreative.co.uk) have come back to haunt the creative industry. They were:
- Out of the 5 large agencies that I worked for only 6 other people had a marketing qualification. I can name them and they are all on my LinkedIn. Top people!
- But... as a general rule, there was no theory, no rational - especially in one agency, who's MD ranted "We don't do Marketing - just sell it in".
- Design was thrown into studio and as many designers as possible. They then magicly produced something fairly lame and it was all retro-engineered into the client's problem and presented as, "Which one do you like?"
- Account staff were lazy, bad sales people who ruthlessly did as little as possible unless it was lunch (or booze).
- Creatives were (and I tell no lies) drunk, high (or both) - even at client meetings - and had egos the size of Paris - speeding out of the car parks in their tacky Mazda MX5's or being found face-down in squalid flats shitfaced. Or sniffing just a little bit too much.
- Copywriters had to be "oh so bloody clever" all the damn time. "Hey, I know, on this website, yeah? Let's call the navigation, 'Coffee & Donuts' instead of 'Contact Us' - - to great applaud by all non-technical-numpties who had not a jot of a UX clue. Sadly, clients loved it too... and then wondered why no one knew where the hell to go on their website.
- Print buyers had made an artform out of print production sounding complicated (when it's actually pretty damn easy - it's freakin' paper for crying out loud - a 4000 year technology!).
On top of this, "Account" staff and directors would regularly say something took 4days when it took 4hours, double bill clients.... and were generally under-hand and would "sell in" shoddy creative work at any price - especially at the price of their honesty - oh... they slept like babies.
Disgusting behaviour.... all round. The trouble was that most clients didn't really know any better... but they had an inkling. No wonder our hero Bill Hicks had this to say:
This wasn't a one off experience. AND... based on the 8-10 agencies we've worked with in the last 5years, not a lot has changed. Our latest engagement with an agency (who had no technical capabilities what-so-ever but thought they could deliver websites) drove me to do something I have NEVER done before - seriously threaten to walk off the job mid way. What a total and utter disaster.
So.... what is my point
My point is that, for the last 20years, clients have been hood-winked, run amock, lied too, stolen from, double billed and generally let down by 70% of the numpty, half baked "design agencies" out there.Average-to-shoddy work abounds.
And they were, are and always will be fed up with such behaviour. Hence why many clients come to us with the "You've been recommended for your honesty. I feel my last agency were taking the micky"... and they usually were.
So... What's happened?
Clients don't want agencies any more. Even though they 'took it' for so long, they always knew that something wasn't quite right. Now:- A new generation of tech savvy marketers are client-side
- Software is sooooooooooo much cheaper
- Clients want to do it in house - for speed and "last minute" mainly (because that's how marketing often is)
- Most people can use Adobe Creative Suite within about 1hour of training
- Hardware is soooooooooooooo much cheaper
Basically, clients don't want drawn out, overly expensive, shoddy, half baked creative any more that doesn't have a proper rational (might look prettier but it doesn't work properly!). They'd rather create their own half-baked creative, get it out the door faster, be able to amend it themselves rapidly when they get 'feedback' and save themselves a shed load of time and money.
Unless a business is large and/or is looking for something 'special', the idea of a creative agency that also does all the resizing and grunt work is dead. Clients want to have all that in house so they can quickly respond, not be tied in with an agency... and, most importantly, be 100% in control of their marketing.
The future.
That is why, we are launching our "Strategy, Coaching and Training" services over the next 3months. We aim to be the "honest rock" you can depend on. Although clients want to do it all in house, they (often) still don't have the high-end agency experience, strategy and tech skills to deliver at a world class level.We will be there to help. Whether it is about defining your value proposition, branding challenges, campaign idea generation or technical challenges for websites, apps etc, we will be there as a support team - helping train, coach and be a sounding board to help you avoid the many pitfalls that day-to-day marketing can throw at us.
We can save you from hours of frustration and show you how to avoid costly mistakes, how to best set up the studio processes - and up-skill your team to be operating at a level which will mean rapid marketing success - and not being dependant on external agencies that fail to be as professional as you need.
PS: I know some will disagree. But, if I flip the argument on its head and ask, "If agencies are doing such a good job, would we really be in the situation where more and more companies want to be doing it in house?". I don't think so. If agencies were masters of their craft and experts in their field, (and actually honest with their clients) companies wouldn't even have thought of doing it in-house.
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