Need an Ad Agency? Why bigger isn’t always better.

The case for the smarter, efficient and savvier small ad agency.

Back in my client-side days as the G.M. of Advertising for DISH Network, I was tasked with hiring an agency of record. A previous effort was made by a Sr. V.P. of Marketing the year before which turned into a creative shoot out, one where no agency was selected. Goodby and Campbell Mithun were among the group of competitors, all of which were furious that they spent a ton a money pitching a company that had no idea what it wanted. I remember the lower level Marketing staff looking at the presentations afterwards and making comments on how “unoriginal the creative was,” “that it wasn’t on message” and “these guys obviously don’t get us.” The bottom line was that the internal creative team didn’t want a big outside agency coming in and taking over, and the leadership didn’t want to pay their bill.

However, we still needed exciting new creative ideas and our internal team wasn’t delivering the concepts we needed. Like the “WOW” campaign from the mid-sized L.A. creative shop David & Goliath, which resulted in a terrific TV campaign that made our phones ring like crazy. Or, like the infamous “Cable Pig” campaign which we co-developed with a very small New York ad agency. That campaign ignited our base, infuriated cable and catapulted DISH past Time Warner into third place in our category.

I made the same mistake that many people do when it was my turn to hire an agency, I thought bigger would be better. Don’t get me wrong, Publicis West out of Seattle did a terrific job managing the work flow and developing the creative, but the cost was so high that the expense vs. perceived value was too low and ultimately resulted in their dismissal. I got the turn-key solution I was looking for but what I really needed was a creative shop that could think strategically and reverse engineer great creative that would bring our message to life.

It was a mistake to look past the smaller agencies that competed for our business at DISH, and recognizing that error in judgment resulted in my future choices of employment…small ad agencies. My first stop was a creative agency in Pasadena that was so creative it was scary. Their core business is video game developers, an industry that markets to the toughest demo on the planet, tweens and teens. The imagery was visually mind blowing and they know how to market to their demo so well that they should be eligible for a patent on the process. Where things got sticky is when they tried to break out of their chosen vertical and the prospective company didn’t fit their system. Most of those pitches were a major stretch with them trying to draw obscure parallels like “why first person shooter games are similar to online retail initiatives?” Key takeaways from that experience? Work for an agency that has a diverse client base, one that has a handful of large clients and staff that truly enjoy being problem solvers as much as being artists.

The bottom line is that you have to look hard to find an ad agency thats a true value. Here are the top things to look for:

A shop that’s strategic and creative. They need to be able to break down competitive sets and properly position a brand and the products or services the brand offers. They should know when to shift from awareness to acquisition and vise versa. Not be afraid of a strong call to action and know how to protect the brand image, all at the same time. If the shop is all strategy then they’re really a marketing firm and you can expect to pay through the nose for a ton of extra quantitative and qualitative research. If the shop is all creative then be prepared to fight over content when they keep putting your offer in mouse type in the lower right hand corner of the ad. A good agency will have a deep pool of creative and strategic talent at their fingertips should a project require a higher level execution.
Find a shop that’s the right size. Small enough so that there’s no “B” and “C” teams packed full of Joey’s and Suzie’s, first year ad pups who can’t find your ad with two hands. You only want to work with “A” grade talent at an agency thats just big enough to turn out the work.
Make them an extension of you. If you’re a bigger company, give the shop a chance to build a team around you and commit to developing a long term relationship. Familiarity creates efficiency and you’ll be sharing the same brain before you know it. Our clients frequently make the comment that we know their business better than they do. While their distracted by corporate issues, we’re thinking about their brand and how to keep moving the needle on sales.
Don’t treat your agency like a commodity that is easily replaced. Lack of loyalty will get you an agency that treats every job like it could be their last, resulting in you getting only a fraction of their true effort and they’ll charge you more for the work they do.
Don’t place so much weight on experience in your vertical that you overlook what experience in a different industry can do for you. I hired Publicis because they’re the AOR for T-Mobile. The cellular industry and satellite were extremely similar. Acquisition based with hardware and tiered product plans where retention is key, because subscriber acquisition cost means that you’re not making money on a new subscriber for years. There was a small learning curve for Publicis but the relationship resulted in no out of the box ideas or modalities like the fresh perspectives that we got from the smaller agencies before them.

Brandon Tague

Director of Strategic Planning / Bigfish Creative Group

Scottsdale and Greater Phoenix, Arizona

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