Mumbrella360: Fear, bad briefs, egos – The biggest client-agency taboos, according to industry leaders
At Mumbrella360 last month, Spark Foundry revealed its latest research initiative, uncovering the top five taboos in client-agency relationships. Here are the juicy details.
Presented by chief strategist Caroline Hugall and strategy director Josh Green, the research acted as the third chapter in the agency’s ongoing exploration into client-agency dynamics, following 2022’s ‘In It For the Long Haul‘ and 2023’s ‘Finding the Holy Grail’ papers.
Despite the industry’s pervasive habit of predicting its own downfall, Spark Foundry established that it has never been more resilient. However, internal conflicts and self-doubt lead to gaps in empathy, power and purpose in client-agency relationships. A lack of mutual understanding means the industry struggles to collaborate and innovate. As an industry, Hugall said we need to inspire practices that build personal relationships, enhance appreciation for each other’s work, and foster mutual respect.
The research serves one main purpose: Airing dirty laundry.
“Doing so can stop bad behaviour, make work better, and benefit all members of a relationship,” Hugall said.
The findings are based on anonymous 45-minute interviews Spark Foundry conducted with over 25 senior industry leaders – including agency professionals across creative and media, marketers, procurement officers, and pitch consultants.
“What we’re sharing with you is what we heard,” she said. “These are big themes that arose, and it’s quite spicy.”
(L-R): Deloitte’s Nick Garrett, Publicis’ Imogen Hewitt, and Westpac’s Annabel Fribence joined Hugall on stage to discuss the taboos
Fear
Fear emerged as a defining characteristic of client-agency relationships. Green said this fear manifests in various forms, such as loss aversion, distrust, and insecurity. Agencies fear losing clients, while marketers fear appearing incompetent.
“Regardless of who we spoke to, this was a word that came up time, and time again,” he said. “So much so, we don’t think it’s an overstep to call it the defining characteristic of client-agency relationships.”
One senior marketer told Spark Foundry that “there is a culture on client side of clients not wanting to appear like they’re not the expert and they don’t know all of the detail”. This mutual fear inhibits robust debate and fosters transactional relationships.
Hugall said: “Reading between the lines, it’s a bit like dating as a teenager. We’re deeply insecure whether it’s about the future, stuff we don’t know, or the sense that our efforts and love for each other is unrequited.
“We must acknowledge that fear is the most disruptive and destructive emotion in the client-agency relationship. A fear of speaking up, a fear of transparency, a fear of having brave, courageous ideas can lead to a lack of trust on both sides along with mediocre work. Mediocre thrives on fear,” she continued.
Fumbling in the Dark
This taboo highlights the issues arising from a lack of communication and transparency.
A foundational issue in client-agency relationships is the lack of knowledge sharing, leading to agencies not fully understanding their clients’ businesses, profitability drivers, and broader imperatives. When agencies lack a deep understanding of their clients’ businesses, this results in inefficiencies. Finding the balance between agencies having business visibility and maintaining an external perspective is a nuanced challenge that requires skillful handling.
Spark Foundry found that poor brief writing and unclear decision-making processes can exacerbate these problems, with hierarchical and committee-based approvals hindering effective work and clear communication.
“It was widely acknowledged that there are very few marketers who know how to write a good brief, but equally, very few agency folk who were willing to give feedback on this,” Green said.
Three in the Bed… Agency, brand, and ego
The influence of personal and organisational egos significantly impacts client-agency relationships, the research found.
Impacted by short tenures and the need for quick, visible results, Spark Foundry found that CMOs can be perceived as focusing on building their personal brands. Agencies, on the other hand, can be viewed as being distracted with winning awards and external validation. This mutual quest for recognition can undermine the focus on long-term, effective collaboration and brand building.
One marketer said: “For most CMOs, what they’re doing in this job is an audition for their next job. Doing the hard working, unsexy grunt work doesn’t have the same profile…While doing the big splashy work might not have worked, but it’s got the eyes of everyone on it.”
Hugall asked the question that’s tiptoed around but never said directly: “Have we created an industry that is too obsessed with external validation?”
(L-R): Deloitte’s Nick Garrett, Publicis’ Imogen Hewitt, and Westpac’s Annabel Fribence joined Hugall on stage to discuss the taboos
The Pitch Itch
Hugall said a session on taboos would be incomplete without referencing pitching.
“And that’s because it’s overwhelmingly treated as a blunt tool,” she explained. “And there’s an underlying suspicion that it represents what Josh and I like to call as peak relationship – despite the increasing amount of agency work being project based, the pitch process has not evolved sufficiently to reflect the new size of the prize.”
It was widely acknowledged in Spark’s interviews that despite the increasing project-based nature of agency work, the pitch process remains outdated and inefficient.
According to agency leaders, agencies often feel they face unrealistic expectations and arbitrary pricing structures during pitches, leading to frustration and a sense of futility.
“It is perceived that clients can fail to appreciate the extensive work involved in pitching, and the strength of the relationship peaks during the pitch phase.” Green explained.
As a former agency person and current CMO reflected: ”They haven’t walked in the agency’s shoes enough and don’t understand what the pitch process is really like on the other side. It can be very exciting when you’re a marketer and you see all these agencies come in with their dog and pony show and their ideas. But the amount of work that goes into that… how crushing it is when you don’t win.”
Race to the Bottom
This taboo addresses the perceived commoditisation of agency services and inadequate remuneration models. There was a mounting sense that the agency head hour model was not only detrimental to agencies but failed to deliver brands with the right work.
“The hourly billing model is most akin to a taxi driving service where you keep driving around and around in circles and the bill keeps going up… whether you get to your destination doesn’t matter, and that’s where the model (fails) for me. I want Uber, right? I want to know before I book the fare how much it’s going to cost me,” one marketing respondent told Spark Foundry.
Green acknowledged that ending on a “downer” was a taboo in itself, but it needed to be done: “While this might point to an output-based model as the gold standard, there are major challenges in this being implemented.”
Spark Foundry heard how hard it is to quantify business impact. One industry leader said: “Clients don’t want to tell us because then it would really force a conversation on ‘should we be getting a clip of the ticket?’ Should we be getting a royalty payment? Should we be getting a percentage of sale?’ Because that is how our industry will survive and thrive. To me, the last taboo is actual efficacy, actual accountability and actual results.”
Remuneration needs to be looked at if we are serious about ensuring the future of our industry, yet it remains a scary work for both clients and agencies. To overcome it we need radical transparency.
After presenting the research, Hugall invited Deloitte Digital’s Nick Garrett, global leader – marketing and commerce, Imogen Hewitt, Publicis Groupe’s ANZ chief media officer, and CEO, ANZ at Spark Foundry, and Westpac’s chief brand and marketing officer Westpac, to the stage.
The panelists discussed the taboos, reflecting on their experiences.
To watch this session recording and more from Mumbrella360, head to Mumbrella Pro.
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