The Iconic’s CMO on bringing agencies into ‘the trenches’
Leading chief marketing officer Joanna Robinson is a big believer that a client is only as good as its agency partners, and said The Iconic is “very lucky” for its village.
Speaking at the Mumbrella Retail Marketing Summit on Wednesday morning, Robinson continually raved about her media and creative partners, Love Media, Wired Co, and Dentsu Creative, while sharing the story of how The Iconic lost its way – and found it again.
But she was raving for a good reason. Without those partners, she believed The Iconic wouldn’t be on the rise now.
Congratulations Joanna, a client calling it as it really is.
Look at Pieter-Paul and Matt from Better Briefs and the IPA work they have continued to build on. Ritson on briefing et al… Look at the AANA playbook published a couple of years ago.
In every relationship I have managed in 25 plus years that either struggles or eventually fails, it is down to either no briefs at all…or substandard ‘shopping lists’.
The problem is that most are not trained to craft a brief, or even understand why it is so critical. So many people under 30 in client companies simply have no idea how to even approach writing a brief, or seek help in doing so. And worse still CMO’s don’t observe/help them.
Added to the fact that many under 30 in agencies have no idea how to sell work, or have the skills to push back at clients who can’t, or won’t brief properly. Again they are often left to dangle in the wind by their management.
In every case the most effective successful client/agency partnerships driving business success at many levels for the client always have strong briefing inherent in the way of working together.
Sadly much rarer than you would expect, and it is no wonder Marketing in companies struggle to get a real voice in the C-Suite….
Richard Goodrich. Aprais.