Sometimes Strategy Is Too Steep
If you’re tapped into LinkedIn, specifically the PR/creative agency/marketing/advertising corner of LinkedIn, you’re likely familiar with a viral post from Stephanie McCarty, CMO at Taylor Morrison. The post is lengthy, but in a nutshell, she voiced her frustration with the advertising agency process. Specifically, how strategy is done.
Stephanie explained, “A lot of agencies won't do the work until you pay them to do the 'strategy.' And that’s where the rub begins. I don't want to pay them for strategy. The brand is responsible for the strategy.”
She continued, “I want to pay an agency for the outside creative talent I can't afford to have in-house. Every time I work with a new agency, I get so unbelievably frustrated. It’s so expensive, and I feel like I don't get what I need most for the money. It makes it near impossible to argue the ROI internally and entertain doing it again. And I think we are beginning to see the effects of this broken model take place.”
As you can probably guess, she ruffled a few feathers. There was so much riffling, that the folks at Adweek caught wind of the post. Adweek gave Stephanie a chance to expand her thought for a featured article. She wrote that “as a CMO, it feels like I’m being held hostage” by the strategy phase of the creative process.
She went on to elaborate about the ways the agency model is broken, explaining to Ad Week, “So many agencies are convinced that they need to do these deep, months-long dives into the brand before they can even think about being creative. They want to run focus groups, conduct surveys and spend countless billable hours trying to 'immerse' themselves.” She had a lot more to say, and this might surprise you, but we agree.
Mostly.
Parts of the Agency Process Are Broken…for Her
For what Stephanie McCarty needs, the traditional agency model is absolutely broken, and that’s because she isn’t looking for an agency. It should go without saying, but we’ll say it anyway: It’s not an agency’s job to grow your budget, it’s an agency's job to solve your problems. The problem she seems to be trying to solve is, “How do I get bigger ideas into my team?” And she's correct, strategy isn’t going to solve that problem.
The Taylor Morrison team doesn’t need strategy and that’s totally fine, but there is no substitute for creative strategy. None. It’s akin to trying to build a house without a blueprint. Strategy helps an agency understand if certain things will or won’t been effective, so you can’t go without it.
All good creative strategy starts with insight.
If Stephanie has the data to get that insight, then she is absolutely correct: no strategy time needed. Let’s get started on what she really wants: hired muscle. It sounds like she needs an agency to work alongside her team to give them the big ideas they aren’t coming up with on their own.
How Would Mad Genius Fix It
Were Mad Genius working with Taylor Morrison, we’d ask for data, so we can gain insight and eliminate the need for strategy. Once we're all on the same page, we'd get to work. If we couldn’t get all the answers, our Brand Fusion would come into play—unlike market research, it’s fast and done at a fraction of the cost.
From there it’s straight to campaign boards, which is that flood of big ideas. Campaign boards offer our clients a more profound look at various concepts. Our clients develop these campaign boards into fully fleshed out campaigns in-house or with us if they need some help. We can help get clients to the finish line, or just draw the map for them to follow. We have a proven track record of doing both.
Stephanie’s beef is legit. Good strategy via primary market research is challenging, time-consuming, and expensive. It’s not something her company needs to do every year or every time she’s teaming up with an agency. If that’s where her (or your) issues with the current agency model lie, we get it.
In her last few interactions with creative agencies, it seems as if expectations weren’t aligned. Communication is the key here because expectations unsaid are expectations unmet. If you aren’t telling, someone what you need, then yes, agencies are lining their pockets. When that happens, it’s going to lead to frustrations for everyone.
Next time, just call Mad Genius.