WHO'S ON YOUR SIDE?

The power of services such as the RAR and the DBA Directory

26th April, 2010

Just recently I’ve moved employers from Land Securities, a fairly large UK-focussed property company to Buro Happold, a consultant engineer working across the world.

One company a pillar of the FTSE 100, underpinned by a far-sighted and long term investment strategy in commercial property…the other a partner owned, fee earning business…

But despite their differences both had a torrid time over the last 18 months …Land Securities suffered a £4.8bn loss during the period…that’s 4,800 million pounds…Whilst Buro Happold saw their turnover fall and announced cost cutting measures across the business…

But today Land Securities have announced they are dusting off and readying themselves for £700m worth of development and Buro Happold are re-employing…preparing to open new offices in emerging markets and successfully won new contracts worth tens of millions of pounds in the first quarter of 2010 alone.

So it seems cautious optimism is seeping back into many companies. And even cautious growth is back on the agenda.

But the world doesn’t look like it did in 2006 or 2007. Fresh from the bruising suffered during the downturn - businesses have changed.  From my perspective at least, dealing with the boards at both Land Securities and Buro Happold I would have to say that decision making criteria have shifted.

Procurement processes and criteria put in place last year won’t disappear now and look like they are one of the many legacies created by the downturn...More than ever, Senior Management want to know that they’re management teams are making the right decisions. That those decisions will deliver value to the business and pose as little risk to the company as possible. And unfortunately when faced with difficult decisions marketers seem to outsource responsibility to the dreaded free pitch…the long standing dysfunction that our industry has to endure. Leading as it does to so many poor decisions on agency selection. I can never understand why the free creative pitch is used at all.

As far as I can see it has four major problems:

Firstly it can favour the weak. It is very likely that the least busy agency involved in a pitch will spend the most time preparing their response. This means they are likely to over deliver and perhaps unfairly influence the decision through sheer volume of work produced.

Secondly it sets up a dysfunctional dynamic between client and agency from the start that will last as long as it takes to recoup the money spent during the pitch. Having worked at agency myself I know that the time spent on a pitch is often recorded in the same way as it would be on any other live fee-paying work. It will then fall to the plucky account director to find ways to recoup this money during the first couple of jobs with the new client. In which case the client ends up paying for the pitch work anyway but has started the relationship with a dysfunctional, potentially resentful agency.

Thirdly what value has the creative work really got? After all even in the best of circumstances the work will have been prepared in a matter of weeks, without the full engagement of the client and without full access to all of the research and facts that the company is unlikely to have released even in the most confidential of pitches.

And finally it allows subjectivity into what should otherwise be an objective process. Deciding to use agency A over Agency B because the MD prefers purple to blue is never going to ensure best value but it still happens…all too often

And so get off of your soapbox Tom. Especially as most people already know all of this. And especially as I’ve said all of this before. And especially especially  after the industry has chosen not to listen and moved on.

So depressingly I have to concede that it seems that the unpaid pitch isn’t going anywhere soon and it is to the unpaid pitch that the majority of marketers will turn when making future agency selections.

In which case you need someone on your side.

And as far as I can see –  this is where the RAR and the DBA’s Directory service comes in.

In an age where I am able to browse Amazon, ebay, trip advisor, check-a-trade and endless other websites for user feedback on seemingly any product or service from plumbers to toasters. The RAR and DBA directory give marketers a similar level of user insight as these, more consumer focussed sites allow.

These services I am sure will become an increasingly relevant and vital resource for marketers. The sites offer an independent, agnostic view of agency performance through client feedback in the case of the RAR and a best practice guide to buying design and procurement process compatible downloadable information in the case of the DBA Directory. What better way of proving that you’re making the right decision to someone in procurement then showing them that numerous well regarded clients have heaped praise on the same agency that you have selected and that you are following the industries best practice in doing so...also what better way for people in my position to thank their agency partners for doing fantastic work than to give them a leg up with new business by writing a glowing review.

On top of this the systems offer agencies and clients their assurance that if they run a pitch or agency selection process they will guarantee the process to be run fairly. Free of cronyism, nepotism or any other ism that no doubt you have suffered during more old-fashioned and no doubt unfair pitch processes…

In a crowded, difficult, competitive and now procurement scrutinised marketplace it is schemes like these that are going to single businesses out as leaders in their field.