Confronting the client-agent trust deficit head on
Both sides know it’s an issue. Both sides are uncomfortable. And both sides in Australia seem relatively reluctant to address it.
One thing I learnt quickly in my early 20s was that whilst overdue bills were not a pleasant thing to face up to, ignoring them didn’t make them go away.
In fact, ignoring them made them significantly worse in most cases.
Right now, it feels like the advertising industry is in the same position when it comes to trust between agency and client. Both sides know it’s an issue. Both sides are uncomfortable. And both sides in Australia seem relatively reluctant to address it.
Martin Cass of Assembly last week put in the public domain a viewpoint that has been shared privately for the past few years – “there is an enormous lack of trust.”
Advertising has forever been seen as a ‘rogue’ industry, full of colourful characters and glamorous women, all earning huge incomes. Series like Madmen don’t help. But, the real deterioration of trust is not between ad (creative) agencies and their clients, it is between the media agencies and their clients. The Media media would do well to remember this and be much clearer in differentiating between the two.
Creative agencies cannot hide behind algorithms and programmatic buying; they’re faced with the stress of creating new ideas every single day, not new schedules based on increasingly questionable data. If there is a trust issue between creative agencies and their clients, it is in the fact that clients invariably understate the scope of work required for the fees agreed,and that agencies invariably do the work without any fee adjustment.
Can’t help but point out that the opportunistic U-Turn by ad execs like the author above who were complicit (and in denial) for years in the practises they are now advocating a clean up of.
All for a free, of course. And hardly for the greater good of the industry.
Perhaps the dodgy practices of the media agency where the author previously worked is why he left agency life in the first place. I don’t think we should criticise this round of whistleblowers. It’s about time the truth came out. We should encourage it.
@Cynic – I’d be happy to discuss this claimed u-turn and where I have shown any change in my approach to this. I think you’ll find my tune has not changed for the better part of the last 10 years on agency side.
The author seems to propogate a U-Turn from the current practices and it only make more sense why he is doing so. PwC has rich pockets and make more money on non marketing/advertising businesses. Target pressures therefore neglible or astronomical as compared to pure advertising companies who solely rely on advertising dollars.
The issue lies with the target pressures set and promised by holding companies. Some of these targets factor the fat bonuses and remunerations that need to be paid at the top. Allow decent and achievable targets for markets to grow and reinvest. In plain words, reduce the greed and grow the trust.