Advertising on the client side 2:

“So, who does what in managing

ad campaigns?”

MDIA3000 – Advertising in Action

Week 2 Lecture
 This afternoon

1. Aspirational objectives for advertising strategies

2. Consumer – brand engagement and the challenges traditional client –
agency relationships
3. A model for the nature of client – agency relationships
4. Better coordination of campaigns between clients and agencies

2
 Part 1

Aspirational ad strategies
 Traditional advertising objectives

Mindshare branding
Emotional branding
Viral branding

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 Mindshare branding

Single, distinctive benefit

Brand definition: a set of abstract associations

Company’s role: a steward – consistent expression of the USP

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6
https://youtu.be/VnCajZth-24
 Emotional branding

Closer relationships with consumers

Brand definition: a relationship partner

Company’s role: a good friend

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8

https://youtu.be/lMV4ji_A7zo
 Viral branding

Stealth marketing; the hunt for the cool, the novel, the viral

Brand definition: a communications unit

Company’s role: motivate the right consumers to advocate

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10
https://youtu.be/ZUG9qYTJMsI
 Iconic branding

Powerful cultural symbols

They tap into the values of society

They are an ideology, an identity myth

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12
Douglas Holt
https://vimeo.com/833201864?share=copy
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https://youtu.be/drcO2V2m7lw
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https://youtu.be/d0iyKl_KgYA
 Part 2

Consumer-brand engagement
and
client-agency challenges
 Consumers as protagonists vs. brand-centricity

Brand managers Agency creatives

Market performance logistics Creative experimentation
Measurable revenue generating outcomes Elicit emotional appeal
16 Develop “big ideas”

Gambetti et al, Brand wars: consumer-brand engagement beyond client-agency fights, 2016, Journal of Strategic Marketing, Vol 24, 2, pp90-103
 What

Agency Client

17 How

Gambetti et al, Brand wars: consumer-brand engagement beyond client-agency fights, 2016, Journal of Strategic Marketing, Vol 24, 2, pp90-103
 Respective “battle arrays”:
Agency Client
Sender-based to dialogue Agency lack of professional adequacy
True, relevant, part of their world Agencies lack strategic focus
Dynamic action plan Cool, trendy ideas, experimentation
Accept the risk of fewer contacts Focus on aesthetic impact (not numbers)
Concentrate on brand ambassadors Agencies brief executors not key partners
Selective quality Extensive quantity

“Your marketing plan needs to be alive. You cant just check
your efficacy after a campaign – this is just too late. You need
to change things and adjust everything according to the
feedback gathered from dialogues with consumers.”
“You open social dialogues online for your brand and guess
who is in charge of this task? Young interns. They are new to
the company, new to the brand, new to our customers. They
18 know the tools and that’s it.”
“You need to find professionals who know how to listen to
brand needs, where to go and how to fill the gap. But there are
no professionals: they seem to be all amateurs thrown into the
fray or creative stars longing for Cannes awards…and that ends
up neglecting their potential of our brand to really engage our
target.”
“Often agencies indulge in their sophisticated creative tastes
and come up with initiatives that are genuinely beautiful but
scarcely relevant for our consumers: too lateral and not
thoroughly consistent with our brand.”
19

https://youtu.be/-3cYBOMFG0c
Client–agency mental models

Agency Client

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Devinney, Dowling, Collins, Client and agency mental models in evaluating advertising, 2005,
International Journal of Advertising, 24(1), pp 35-50
 Agency Client

21

Devinney, Dowling, Collins, Client and agency mental models in evaluating advertising, 2005,
International Journal of Advertising, 24(1), pp 35-50
 Agency Client

22

Devinney, Dowling, Collins, Client and agency mental models in evaluating advertising, 2005,
International Journal of Advertising, 24(1), pp 35-50
 Agency Client

23

Devinney, Dowling, Collins, Client and agency mental models in evaluating advertising, 2005,
International Journal of Advertising, 24(1), pp 35-50
 24

Devinney, Dowling, Collins, Client and agency mental models in evaluating advertising, 2005,
International Journal of Advertising, 24(1), pp 35-50
 A future for consumer-brand engagement

A network of actors progressively building a relationship culture

Consumers
Clients
Agencies
The brands

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 Part 3

What client-agency relationship

will you have?
 Client – agency relationship frameworks

Environmental
propensity for interfirm partnerships (propensity for trust)

Interorganizational
historical learning through partnerships (Risk appetite)

Dyadic
history between specific companies (propensity for knowledge sharing)
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 Client – agency relationship: impact on effectiveness

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Calderwood et al.
 Client – agency relationship: impact on creativity

If clients don’t get highly creative work then it

is clearly the agency’s fault.

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Koslow, Sasser, Riordan, Do marketers get the advertising they need or the advertising they deserve, 2006,
Journal of Advertising, Vol 35, No 3, pp 81-101.
 Creativity and the creative process

The creative individual or the creative process?

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Teressa Amabile
 Creativity and the creative process

Creativity relevant process

Domain relevant experience
Internal motivation
Social environment

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Teressa Amabile
 Client – agency relationship: impact on creativity

Clients set the direction

Clients provide specific resources
Clients hold agencies accountable for “performance”

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Koslow, Sasser, Riordan, Do marketers get the advertising they need or the advertising they deserve, 2006,
Journal of Advertising, Vol 35, No 3, pp 81-101.
 Client – agency relationship: impact on creativity

Clients set the direction

The brief
Strategy shared?
Exploring new strategic ideas?

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Koslow, Sasser, Riordan, Do marketers get the advertising they need or the advertising they deserve, 2006,
Journal of Advertising, Vol 35, No 3, pp 81-101.
 Client – agency relationship: impact on creativity

Clients provide specific resources

Consumer research
Time
Budgets
Access to top managers

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Koslow, Sasser, Riordan, Do marketers get the advertising they need or the advertising they deserve, 2006,
Journal of Advertising, Vol 35, No 3, pp 81-101.
 Client – agency relationship: impact on creativity

Evaluating performance
Formal testing Creativity:
Perceptions of creativity Novel and has value
Original and appropriate
Level of client contact

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Koslow, Sasser, Riordan, Do marketers get the advertising they need or the advertising they deserve, 2006,
Journal of Advertising, Vol 35, No 3, pp 81-101.
 Clients need to be willing to explore new ideas

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 Experienced clients can have “chilling” impact on
creativity

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 Concept testing impacts depend on who you ask

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 Consumer research is important to creativity

un

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 Impact of time and budgets on creativity

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 Part 4

Performance issues in
client-agency relationships
 Client role in managing IMC

Establishing and communicating aspects of the marketing plan

Evaluating agency creative and media recommendations
Coordinating different partners/suppliers
Monitoring the agency's activities

42
Beard, F, Integrated marketing communications: new role expectations and performance issues in the
client-ad agency relationship?, 1996, Journal of business Research 37, 207-215
 Client-agency problem sources

Clients do not make it clear what they expect

Clients don’t provide the information needed
Inexperienced clients
Role ambiguity

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 Client-agency realities

Congruence between client-agency perceptions of client role important

Managing IMC programs creates ambiguity

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 The creative brief

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Thank you