Collaboration: The best way to get along
By Matt Jones, Creative Strategist for Jack Morton in Australia
Management expert Peter Drucker once said, "The successful company is not the one with the most brains, but the one with the most brains acting in concert." That notion of brains acting in concert has become increasingly important for marketers as the world of brand-building has become ever more complex. Brands have moved on from hiring one agency to partnering with several, giving way to dozens of possible approaches, all of which depend in some way on collaboration.
Great collaboration relies on five key things:
1. Agreed goals
If the partner agencies don't all share the same understanding of what success for the brand looks like, they will struggle to agree on the role marketing should play in building the brand and, consequently, their own roles in relation to the brand and their partner agencies. Experiential marketers agree that more than ever clients look to integrated campaigns to solve their needs—and for good reason. The most powerful brand experiences of late can be found within campaigns that reach their target through several channels over a series of weeks or even months. And although the insight for creating impact is different for each media touchpoint, success results from first uniting strategists, account managers, creatives, producers, etc. around a set of goals. Any other way risks the cohesion of the brand experiences.
2. Universal metrics
You do what you measure, so a commitment to quantitative metrics (like reach) will lead you down a different path than a commitment to qualitative metrics (like engagement and brand health). As a result, it becomes difficult for clients to interpret whether they've achieved their goals. And the importance of clear metrics has only increased in my niche of marketing (experiential), as marketers want to better understand their impact—or more to the point—to understand if their money is well spent; bringing me to the next key ingredient for successful collaboration...
3. Enlightened remuneration
If people are paid for having and executing ideas then they will fight for theirs to the chagrin of other ideas, whereas if they are paid for their time then collaboration has a chance. By this I don't mean that those same people will cease fighting, but instead am suggesting that when the motive for debate can move away from making more money than other partners to the quest for strength in strategy, concept and execution, then the client will harness the best out of its agency partners working for a single brand.
4. Strong clients
Regardless of how much love is in a room of agencies that have agreed to work together for one cause, the instinct to create individual agendas is sometime irresistible. So while clients will feel accomplished for rallying the best-of-breed agencies around their brand, they must also realize their own responsibility of steering their agencies towards the single purpose of the brand.
5. And most importantly, clear brand strategy
Most agencies that fail to collaborate successfully do so because they do not share an intrinsic understanding of the brand and its strategy, personality, behavior and stakeholders. Sure, it's hard to achieve, which is why so many brands end up sticking with what they know. But that way lies safety, and therefore trouble.
How can we change that? One word, collaborate. It's going to come down to those agency folk who care far more about doing brilliant work for their clients than about contributing to their employers' bottom lines. Okay, so a few of us signed up to run agencies and make lots of money. But don't most of us just want to be part of doing some great work, by which I mean work that transforms brands, builds businesses, engages people, and changes lives?
I'm not saying it will be easy. And, sure, we won't always get it right or agree on everything. But it has to be worth trying. Because we will do better work.
JACK360° ©2008, Jack Morton Worldwide
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