MxMIndia

Tag: advertising agencies

  • A look at how agencies worked in the days when some of today’s advertising stars may still have been in diapers. Tongue-in-cheek (but no less candid for that).

    The Anchor: 5 contrasts between independent agencies now and then

    By Ravikant Banka

     

    #1 Dost dost na raha, pyaar pyaar na raha

    Independent agencies used to be client’s friend; there used to be love in the air every time the brand manager met the account manager, discussing approvals over a beer. But these days, friendship is dictated by the retainer and the love is traded for a brief.

     

    #2 Do aankhen, baara haath

    Multitasking used to be the name of the game. The account manager was also the account planner. Servicing teams actually came up with creative ideas. And art directors doubled as copy editors to make the copy sensibly shorter while the copywriter had a say in the 20-odd fonts to choose from. Nowadays, each function is excruciatingly well-defined while people wear blinkers and do only what is “written in the job profile”.

     

    #3 Haath ki safaai

    Artworks were a manual, methodical and a sacred affair. It took weeks to assemble the final artwork that finally culminated on the way to the client meeting (only later would they realize that the type-sets had fallen off in all the chaos). The chaos remains the same, but the artworks are a matter of a few hours on the latest-to-the-day software, open for innumerable changes till the client is finally ready to fly to Dubai.

     

    #4 Stock mein hai kya?

    Visuals were ‘created’ by visualisers who either drew them or clicked them the way they wanted them to look. Today, stock images dictate our ideas and layouts.

     

    #5 Commission vs confusion

    Then: 15 percent commission, 85 percent confusion. Now: The commission is decreasing and …

     

    Ravikant Banka is a Mumbai-based adperson

     

  • How to get – and keep – a great agency. Clients, listen up!

    The Anchor: 5 ways clients can get the best out of their agency

    By Anirudha Mukhedkar

     

    #1 Intellectual stimulation

    Keeping the agency intellectually stimulated works like a magnet. The best people in the agency will want to be on your business. Because great people love great challenges.

     

    #2 Creative Sensitivity

    This is not about creative freedom or degree of interference. This is plain, simple human sensitivity about a critical function that the agency performs. Great creativity is all about risk-taking. Which is why creative people can demonstrate belief and passion in their work. This can often get interpreted as pig-headedness. And it takes experience and sensitivity to be able to separate the two. Importantly, this does not mean that creative people or their work needs mollycoddling or tactful handling. Quite the contrary.

     

    Inspire them with the brief. Show respect for their work. And be honest and consistent with your feedback.

     

    #3 Financial Security

    Fundamentally, your agency must believe that you want them to make a healthy profit. Clients who negotiate with an agency on every job might get the best deal, but are not likely to get the best out of their agency over the long term.

     

    #4 Recognition

    The agency business does not pay as well as it used to some years ago. The smart people working on your business could earn as much as double their current salaries if they were in a different industry. They are here because they love the work they do. They love the communication business. Their relationship with their work is more emotional than contractual. Words of praise, letters of recognition and public acknowledgement of the agencies and individuals work way better than any other incentive.

     

    They will love you. They will always give their best for you.

     

    #5 Expectation and Accountability

    Apart from all the nice things that you can do for your agency, sometimes to get the best out of them you need to give the agency a well-defined framework to operate in. It is critical that you spell out your expectations from the agency and the individuals working on your business. This will help not only set benchmarks and define standards, in some cases will inspire your agency to exceed expectations.

     

    Anirudha Mukhedkar is the founder and CEO of Plan B

     

  • Call it the mystique of art or just hardboiled application of effort, creativity still does not get its due in India. Sandeep Bomble draws up the chargesheet.

    The Anchor: 9 reasons creativity in advertising is underpaid

    By Sandeep Bomble

     

    Famous Myths

    #1 India still believes in paying for tangibility. Working hard is often recognized. Man hours matter and define work. Thinking is still an intangible quality which is perceived to be present in everyone.

     

    #2 Creative beings are often mistaken and perceived as souls only hungry for quality work. They can go to any extent to attain their desired passion. Money is secondary for them as long as their passion is groomed on the right track.

     

    #3 In India, qualifications and degrees are everything for a well-settled life. A degree holder can demand a big pay cheque. And why not! After all he has spent a bomb on his professional course. How could he consider a 10th pass Art professional as his peer? How can creativity come with a ‘qualified’ tag? “He can’t possibly be creative with no degree backup,” is something often heard, whereas this creative fellow could be a visionary with immense guts to break every clutter.

     

    #4 It is about the client’s attitude towards creativity. The “anyone can do what you do” attitude. Today, a creative agency goes all out to crack a brilliant communication strategy. Intensive research. Deep thinking. Uncompromised approach on the final execution. Great efforts together bring out that distinctive piece of work. Which can be simple in nature. And the simplicity which isn’t so easy to achieve after reading the most complicated brief often draws the comment: “Oh, even my secretary can write better than this.” Or “My 6-year-old son can draw a better logo for me”. Well, so how would creativity get its due respect and worth?

     

    Brutal Facts

    #1 The clients have become better negotiators than the agencies. With the advertising market expanding, the retainer figures are going down considerably. even the biggest of the agencies are going low on retainership. Consequently, suppressing the quality small agencies to further compromise on creative fees. As a result, the agencies aren’t comfortable in approving heavy salary cheques down the line. It’s sad but true. This is definitely affecting the quality of work. As the industry isn’t working on what they deserve, but is rather content with what is available.

     

    #2 The growth in advertising revenue, though being healthier every passing year, can in no way be compared to a lot of its major peer sectors. The turnover of the advertising industry is significantly less in contrast to telecom, IT or financial sectors. Thus the advertising agencies cannot afford to pay their creative employees more than their annual budget.

     

    #3 Many of the budding creative people lack confidence to ask for the best price for their creative abilities, during their onset. It is only after some years that they realize their creative potential and develop enough self-esteem to rely on the instincts, abilities, conviction and gain the right exposure to demand a more lucrative pay slip.

     

    #4 The young guns who are fresh entrants seek a break to release their potential to the best of their abilities. They vie to work with the best of the creatives, so, if they go to the well-known industry they come mentally prepared to work for peanuts in bargain for their own development. They fear losing an opportunity in a reputed, sought-after ad agency, and thus sadly settle for whatever the agency wishes to pay them.

     

    #5 If the creative guys ask for double the salary as compared to their peers or what the agency thinks is best for them, then they have a greater possibility of not being selected because equal numbers of creatives are ready to work for the same or even lesser amount than the industry standards. Thus the agencies rather go the cliched way of having two brains for the price of one expensive quality brain.

     

    If only we could break these hardbound myths and dispose of them, by practising a common slab of retainership. For instance, charge Rs 5 lakh as retainer fees even to the smallest client. In return, the client enjoys the gradual brand growth, justifying the creative fees in the long run. This way we could standardize the industry format, solving some of the brutal realities, so that creativity breathes fresh and takes pride in matching shoulders with other mighty sectors, head-on.

     

    Sandeep Bomble is the founder of Palasa.

     

  • When is an agency not an 'agency'? When it wants to be a magnet for talent, observes Partha Sinha.

    The Anchor:6 ways ad agencies can attract top talent

    By Partha Sinha

     

    By abolishing the term ‘agency’ : Nobody, absolutely nobody from Harvard or Rhode Island School of Design would like to join an ‘agency’. Anything, even if it is as vague as a brand house or a communication company, sounds more respectable than an ‘agency’.

     

    By not behaving like an ‘agency’: The term ‘agency’ was born because advertising companies represented the media owners as their agency. Today the creative agencies don’t do that, but they represent another lot – the film producers. Today ad agencies are the agents for filmmakers. More time and energy goes into pushing a producer to the client than anything else. Again, no talent wants to come in to help producers buy very expensive cars and apartments.

     

    By changing the agency business model : By behaving like true middlemen, agencies never kept any IP with them. So today, the agency valuation is a joke. Again great talent will never join an industry whose current and future valuation is worthless. The advertising industry should be ‘valued’ for the assets they create, and that calls for IP-based remuneration.

     

    By getting rid of agency fears : Today, the confidence level of agencies has hit rock bottom. Fear is the primary driving force for the functioning of an agency. Agencies are afraid of not only the clients but of film producers, hoarding contractors, research agencies and all other sundry people. No young talent would work in an atmosphere like this. Agencies can become a bit more confident by shifting the conversation from ‘I think’ to ‘I know’. Young talent would love a place that’s more confident of its creations and not just based on hunch and judgment but based on knowledge.

     

    By restructuring the agency organisation : There are people in agencies whose primary job is to second-guess the client . They are clients’ agents inside the organisation (and they can come from any discipline, even creative). No self-respecting talent wants to work for a client, he/she wants to work with a client. Agencies need to rethink their organisation and put emphasis on creation rather than managing expectations. This will increase the inflow of talent.

     

    By discarding some of the agency presentations : There are many occasions where the senior agency types cut a sorry figure in front of a young audience with their sepia-tinted presentations and dead thinking. Even some of the advertising and brand talks that happen on TV shows can scare young talent off. For their own good, ad agencies need to change their thought pieces and representatives. Otherwise young talent will soon start referring to advertising in the past tense.

     

    I know that all 6 of these are virtually impossible to achieve. But then, who said attracting great talent was easy?

    Partha Sinha is the Managing Partner at BBH India.