Building Lasting Relationships

In today’s dynamic world one thing which has become critical is sustainable relationships–on both personal and professional fronts. When it comes to advertising, making sustainable relationships with the clients becomes more important –more important than winning an account.

Ours is an industry which constantly witnesses winning a client, the highs and lows of the relationship and subjective judgements thus making the scenario emotionally charged. As the industry faces challenges like a decline in the spends, weaker loyalty and shallow understanding, most of the agencies get the blame of failed to meet the expectations.

Most of us have read about the days when the client-agency relationship was seen as a bond, a partnership, a mutual responsibility –a covenant as such to increases the brand awareness, craft a communication to take the brand to the next level thus both parties playing an equally important role in nurturing the brand. Now it is just about the ROI.

Though there is an abundance of agencies offering a nimiety of services under the same umbrella, the changing market dynamics make it difficult to converge these services towards attaining sustainable associations. Agencies complain about:

·         Too many contact points at client’s end thus making the decision making process tedious

·         Ever –increasing pressure of ‘quick turn-around time’

·         Infringement of creative space

·         No time for conceptualization

·         Demand to rope in more resources in the same fees

On the other hand client is discontented about the mediocre creative solutions provided by their communication partners thus holding them responsible for the decrease in ROI.

Though I haven’t seen the broader picture of the industry, the one thing I m quite sure about is that many a times both the parties viz. the agency and the client become myopic thus failing to create effective ways sustain the relationship. Still, I can think of the following points which may help in building long lasting client-agency relationships:

·         Fair remuneration system for the agency

·         Defining accountability for performance & results

·         Transparency in information sharing

·         Clear-cut definition of expectations from client

·         Identifying intimidations to the agency if any

·         Well-written creative briefs for the agency

·         Minimizing the levels in approval process

·         Treating each others as partners

·         Fair assessments and review process

Also, Advertising is essentially about people. Peep into the world and you will see things as intangible or as abstract as brand, ideas, concepts, identities and what not. In this abstractness what instills life?? You guessed it right-The PEOPLE. It is very important to invest in people, to trust them, to guide them, train them- thus making them ready and fully equipped to take the world in their stride.

Well I can see the smirk on your face..Too idealistic haan?? Agreed..These points are too idealistic and bookish. But don’t you think its high time to sit, think and retrospect so that we are able to revitalize the client-agency relationship, making the collaboration effective and rewarding.