I am often asked to act as an intermediary between clients and agencies. It is the advertising equivalent of the old Ladies Home Journal column, “Can This Marriage be Saved?” I am usually called upon when the relationship is near its breaking point in a last-ditch effort to salvage it. Much like “Can This Marriage,” I start by speaking to the agency and the client separately to try to understand each one’s point of view and then bring them together to find common ground and a way forward.
I’ve come away thinking that clients and agencies can avoid much of this tension if they acknowledged the differences in their expectations and focus from the start.
Here are the three main differences:
#1. Agencies focus on the work. Clients focus on the process.
Typically, agencies highlight the brand strategy they developed, the insight that drove their thinking, and the creative that carried it out. The agency’s emphasis on tangible assets is not surprising given the focus on creative in pitches and ongoing work. As proof of their success, agencies cite business results and industry awards.
However, Clients expect their agencies to deliver great work, and for that work to drive business. That is why they hired them. For clients, preferring one agency over another is often based on how the client experiences the agency on a day-to-day basis and in critical moments. While clients demand good work, they also want the process of developing that work to be smooth. The classic client comment is, “while the result was good, getting there was painful.” No matter how “successful” the creative, clients will also recall the challenges in nailing the idea, team turnover, missed deadlines, and going over budget—to them, evidence of poor performance.
Yes, some agencies acknowledge bumps along the way, but they see those bumps as insignificant in the big picture. For clients, that is the picture.
#2. Agencies focus on what went right. Clients focus on what went wrong.
We all have cognitive biases that impact our judgment and our recollection of events. The client-agency misalignment is frequently a result of self-serving and negativity biases. The self-serving bias protects self-esteem. We give ourselves credit for success and blame others for failure. We are the hero of our own stories. As a result, agencies tend to take credit for smart work and blame clients for lackluster results. Of course, clients do the opposite; strong work is a result of their guidance and input. Weak results are the failure of the agency.
The negativity bias suggests that negative experiences have a greater effect on our psychological state than neutral or positive experiences, even when the two are of equal intensity. If an agency delivers two creative presentations, and one is spot-on, and one is not, the client will focus on the presentation that missed the mark. If the agency delivers five strong creative presentations and one weak one, the client will focus on the weak one. Clients expect the agency to deliver every time—and the misses are magnified.
Agencies tend to minimize these missteps, particularly if the result was satisfactory. Agencies highlight the “hit or miss” nature of creativity and remind clients, “it’s a process.” This is not to say that agencies don’t also have a negativity bias—they do. They remember every negative thing that the client said or did—which, in turn, helps reinforce their self-serving bias.
#3. Agencies focus on facts. Clients focus on feelings. To minimize the self-serving and negativity biases, agencies focus on objective measures when evaluating their own performance. Agencies track the number of projects delivered on-time, on-budget, and error-free. They track savings and the number of incremental projects completed by the team. This quantitative assessment is designed to provide perspective, the agency’s way of reminding the client that while one project may have had issues with legal, most did not. It is the agency’s effort to make the review fairer.
This exercise is only useful to a point. It neglects that we are human and react emotionally—even when the facts don’t fully support our point of view. Yes, maybe only one project had an issue with legal, but perhaps that was the project the client hoped would get them promoted. Agencies pride themselves on service and understanding the human condition. They need to apply those skills to their clients and think about how the agency’s actions impact the clients’ feelings of trust and commitment.
These differences are not insurmountable. If agencies and clients try to see each other’s point of view and acknowledge their shared goals, it will give them insight and empathy into their partner.
The marriage can be saved. And it is so much easier than a messy divorce.
Stacey Singer is a client retention and growth specialist. She can be reached at stacey@staceysinger.com.