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.
“If you want to make a difference, you have to stand out,” she told the packed room. “Hire really good agency partners, have a good supportive CFO and CEO that believe in you.
“If you put all of these things together, this is what building a good, memorable brand is all about.”
When Robinson started at The Iconic, Dentsu Creative was “inherited” as the creative partner, and she was keen to “give them a chance”.
“They were there for a reason, and they’ve produced some outstanding, amazing work,” Robinson said.
Agencies are full of “great humans” and marketers should treat them as an extension of the brand, she stressed.
“They’ve got to get in the trenches. And if they’re going to be in the trenches, they have to know our sales, they have to know our margins, they have to know our pain points.”
She expressed frustrations on conversations she has had with brand marketing peers, ones who may not respect the village in the same way she so outspokenly does.
“[What] drives me a bit crazy is when people say, ‘oh we can’t share that with the agency’, well to that I say how are they going to solve your problems [if] they don’t fully understand them?”
She also reminded marketers in the room that “a shit brief gets shit work”, and clients shouldn’t be so quick to blame agencies.
“We are very quick [to do that], but if you go back to the beginning of the process, maybe we didn’t really give them the runway for success,” she said. “So it’s super important to me that we get that process right.”
Getting the process right extends to her earlier point about bring agencies into “the trenches”, as well as respecting their time and capabilities, as she stressed that clients can’t expect a good piece of work in only a week.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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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.
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