To shed some light on this topic, we asked Hari Shankar (Ecselis Asia), a veteran of both brands and agencies, to speak about how brands can have more productive relationships with agencies at a recent Econsultancy event in Singapore.

During his talk, Hari shared many insights about how brand marketers should both choose their agency partners and work with them on an ongoing basis. Below is a summary of his main points.

1) Write a well-crafted request for proposal (RFP)

The best client-agency relationships always start with the brand side delivering a request for proposal which is:

  • Clear: Avoid using company or industry acronyms and state overall objectives
  • Bounded: The roles for both the agency and the brand marketers should be included
  • Realistic: Delivery times and goals need to be evaluated sensibly before asking for quotes

Also, the RFP should include long-term goals of the brand so that everyone understands the big picture behind the work that needs to be done. (For more advice on how to write an RFP, be sure to refer to Econsultancy’s RFP templates.)

2) Select your agency objectively, quantitatively, and qualitatively

Evaluating agencies should be carried out on an objective, quantitative and qualitative basis.

Objective in the sense that there should not be favourites when you start the selection procedure. Keep the selection team small and of relatively equal status in the company so that you may avoid this issue.

Quantitative in that you ask for a quote and evaluate the agencies based on their response. Keep ‘procurement wolves’ from driving down the agency’s price before you have even started.  Procurement departments are very good at buying physical inventory, but may squeeze the ‘human inventory’ of agencies too much.

And finally, select your future agency partner qualitatively so that you are choosing the one which fits your needs. If they specialise in digital don’t push them to deliver omnichannel. If they are known for being creative, then find another agency to do your media buying.

3) Keep both the scope and performance metrics simple

Once an agency is selected and the commercial terms defined, it should be clear to both sides

A) what the agency is aiming to accomplish for the brand;

B) how everyone will know if they are successful.

The best way to do this, according to Hari, is to keep things simple. Brands should avoid having too many people involved in setting the scope and draw a roadmap for success from the outset.

This way both sides know what the expected outcomes are and whether or not the targets are being hit.

Too often, explained Hari, each brand marketer throws their own objectives into an ill-defined strategy and neither the agency nor the marketer managing the relationship understands overall performance.

4) Run a tight ship at both the agency and the brand side

If the brand marketers can set well-defined goals and success metrics at the start, then they need to strive to keep things simple on an ongoing basis.

To do so, they should:

  • Have a clear line of communication: Assign people on each side who will be responsible for keeping people accountable and results measurable
  • Avoid unnecessary meetings: Agencies provide more value when they spend less time in meetings
  • Establish a sensible reporting process: If there are too few reports, then the brand-side marketers will feel like they are being kept in the dark. But, Hari noted, having too many reports puts you in the same place, only the agency will be spending more time putting together charts and graphs than doing the work they are being paid for.

So, overall, for brands and agencies to work well together both sides need to minimize the fluff and maximize the action. Cutting down on all unnecessary and time-consuming processes will make the relationship work better for everyone.

A word of thanks

Econsultancy would like to thank Hari Shankar, Managing Director, Ecselis Asia & Head of Paid Digital Strategy at Havas Media Group for his insights on how brands and agencies can work together more productively.

We’d also like to thank all of the marketers who attended the presentation and helped with this post by asking many intelligent questions.

We hope to see you all at future Econsultancy events!