What is the Point of Agencies?

Agencies are becoming more diverse as we all seek a way to differentiate ourselves from our competitors and find a unique point of difference. The agency landscape of specialist individualisms is starting to shift and agencies are bringing more and more disciplines together. This has largely been as a result of the growth in digital mediums and the ever-growing landscape of marketing technology. So what is the point of an agency, why would a brand enrol their services and ultimately how do you tell which is a good one?

The Role of the Agency

Agencies are famous for their somewhat unique view of the world and their working environment.

Yes we have the obligatory table football, a room where we draw on the walls, pub benches in the break out areas, colleagues competing for the best/scraggiest/styled/longest beard and the occasional dog, but we also have some of the most brilliant minds not just in marketing, but in business. And it is these people that make agencies unlike any other business sector.

Brands hire agencies for their people, their brains and their thinking. The role of the agency is to help their clients become leaders in their sector and to constantly offer the latest in technology, services, design, strategy and innovation. Agencies have to stay one step ahead of all the latest trends and innovations to help their clients be successful.

Oooh Look, a Shiny New Toy

Agencies can sometimes be accused of being distracted by the latest new toy or service (Think QR Codes and their huge success for 6 months in 2013), but we do it to stay relevant. There will always be successes and failures, but agencies have the capability to Fail Fast. We try new ideas and channels and help our clients stay relevant and to maximise the latest trends. Recently Sky has launched on Snapchat Discover - who would have thought that 1 year ago?

Shiny new toys are coming at us at a rate faster than ever before. Weekly I meet the 23 year old CEO and 21 year old COO of the next big start up. Some will go on to huge success, some will fail, but our role is to learn and review all the new mediums and services available to brands, helping to filter out those that may not be relevant and saving brands a huge amount of time.

Bags of Experience.

Agencies seem to have an endless list of job roles and titles from Client Experience Manager through to Director of Making Friends (I kid you not). All roles do have defined responsibilities and whilst sometimes it is hard to explain to clients the reason why they have an account team with 4 different roles, there is (usually) method to the madness.

Agencies are filled with people from all walks of life. Some come in from client side, others may have been working the agency circuit, and all are stoked by the influx of grads and millennials. This big smorgasbord of talent provides many different views to the same client brief and creates (hopefully) an atmosphere of collaboration, ideas incubation and ultimately some really exciting work.

Obviously some agencies have their own sector specialisms, but a lot of agencies work across a broad selection of sectors providing brands with experience from a completely different industry. This experience, coupled with the different backgrounds of people, enables brands to be provided with ideas that they may not have otherwise thought about.

Brands can also sometimes be insular in their thoughts when it comes to marketing. I’m not saying all brands are like this but certainly some I have worked with are always looking at what they are doing as a business and trying to tell their customers how great their services are. This can be a very blinkered view of their world and can sometimes result in brands just talking about their products and services in the way they think their customers should perceive them.

We are worth it

Agencies are there for one common goal, to serve and help our clients. This underlying belief is fundamental to a successful agency. Brands need to look for this when selecting their agencies and ask, “Do they believe in what we do?” “Are they a long term Partner?” “Can they help us realise our business dreams and goals” and most importantly “Do we trust them?”

Agencies provide a unique service and we have a lot of fun on the way. We work very hard and sacrifice a lot of personal time for our clients, but it is worth it when a new campaign or project is completed and the client is happy.

Look for the underlying culture of an agency and observe their work and their employees. Brands that do this will have a fantastic long term relationship with their agencies and have some fun along the way.