New business agency blog

After taking the trouble of going to court to sue Michael O’Leary for saying that he lied about easyJet’s punctuality rates, Stelios Haji-Ioannou has only gone and published a letter on the easyGroup website threatening to terminate easyJet’s brand license – unless they improve their punctuality rate within 90 days. Perhaps Michael O’Leary can go to the court of appeal with a view to downgrading his “unreserved apology” to maybe “just being a little bit sorry”.

In my last blog, I complained about suffering at the hands of easyJet (and Ryanair) on many occasions over the years. If they haven’t managed to improve punctuality (or customer service) over 10 years, doing it within 90 days could be a tall order.

Therefore I can see an opportunity for a few branding agencies to come up with something punchy and effective to reflect “the brand soon to be formerly known as easyJet’s” ethos.

My initial suggestion would be AreWeThereYetJet. (unfortunately not) but I’m sure that the talented copywriters who enter The Drum magazine’s Chip Shop Awards could come up with a few crackers.

Anyone else got any suggestions?

Gideon Spanier highlighted in the Evening Standard on 19th July that the most successful creative agencies were built on long-term client relationships.

 The focus was on the advertising industry and cited example agency/client relationships such as AMV and Sainsbury’s (30 years plus), DDB and Volkswagen (50 years plus) and JWT and Shell (47 years). These large agencies don’t fit the Alchemis client base profile, but it is interesting to view the reasons why these relationships have withstood the test of time. The usual statements and parallels are made – “The secret of success is as simple and as hard as in marriage” (Stephen Woodford – Chief Executive of DDB). Cilla Snowball (what a fantastic surname!) of AMV says “the relationship, the work and the output have to be bigger than the individuals at any point in time”. Nigel Bogle of BBH said of the departure of the Levi’s account that it felt like “your arm has been cut off”.

 These are all the things a client of any agency would want to hear, but what does it actually mean? Of course you work hard for your clients and losing one is a painful experience. Whilst it is not common at Alchemis, we do lose clients from time to time, and it is gut wrenching when it happens. However, reading between these slightly clichéd comments, the article, in fact, does capture the essence of a strong working relationship which applies to the Alchemis/Client relationship as well. An open, honest approach with constant evaluation and evolution is fundamental. An agency should never get complacent. There are numerous others out there with enthusiasm and fresh ideas waiting to grab that account, so you need to stay focused and constantly supply innovative, quality output. However, therein lies the opportunity. “The average client-agency relationship is only four and a half years” highlights Snowball. With the scale of creative requirement in the UK, that means opportunities for our clients. If incumbents get complacent, don’t quite deliver as they have before, or the company requires a new approach/change in direction and a new way of communicating, we need to ensure that our clients are in place to win that business and that is what Alchemis is good at. We have the tools and processes plus high quality New Business Managers to ensure that we are speaking to those prospects at the right time.

 I don’t want to sound too sceptical, but I do think the article needs to be taken with a pinch of salt. These 30 year plus relationships are great and show that the agencies involved must be producing quality output. However, these are “glamour” accounts. There is no doubt that the agency will ensure involvement from the top level. These clients will win that agency new business and as a result don’t want to be lost at any cost. However, is that the case for all of the clients under that agency banner? With independently owned and run companies, senior (owner) level involvement is the norm on each and every account. Livelihoods depend on it. That is the case for 99.9% of Alchemis clients (and most other small to medium sized agencies), but it really is something that prospects like to hear when being courted by a new agency.

We all know new business is tough, yet it remains essential to the survival and growth of any successful agency. There are various ways of going out and getting it, but Alchemis are experts in the cold calling channel to find and create genuinely new opportunities. We’ll put you in front of the right people with the right budgets – it is then over to you.

Good new business development opportunities are hard to find. One thing is for certain though – if you think going on meetings and then sitting back and waiting for those briefs to come in is what happens, then you will be disappointed. All meetings should be followed up with a good contact strategy, which is stuck to. A proportion of meetings our clients go on will result in immediate opportunities, but by their very nature, if briefs are on the table, they are likely to be competitive.

How many times have you heard “we have an agency in place”? Rather than look on this as a negative, any company with an agency in place should be viewed as an opportunity – they have work and they have a confirmed budget. The next challenge is how to ensure you get a piece of their marketing pie.

You really need to maximise any new business opportunity you get to ensure you give the process every chance of being successful. We give realistic expectations that any return on investment is likely to take as long as six to twelve months or potentially longer, depending on your discipline and offer.

However, that does not have to be the case if you are prepared to take a few risks. We have recently started working with a creative agency. In reality, they don’t have a real USP. There is just great work, strong case studies and a really positive outlook (that description fits the vast majority of our client base). We are only three months into the campaign but only last week we received confirmation that the first meeting has converted into business.

This is rare, but the story behind this win is fantastic in illustrating what can be achieved. The prospect had agencies in place. However, the client in question really used that initial meeting to dig into the prospect’s problems, ambitions and requirements. Using that understanding, they pressed the prospect to allow them to present some ideas relating to their next project (despite being told that this was tied up with the current agency). They bit the bullet and invested time (and money) in photo shoots and creative work, whilst continually speaking to the prospect. The end result was the work they produced wowed the client and they are now undertaking the project in full (and being paid).

In reality, this is not always going to be the case and we certainly wouldn’t advocate this sort of effort in every instance. We know you have active, paying clients to service. However, where the prospect potential is right, the chemistry is right and you know you could do a better job than the existing agency, it is well worth thinking about what you could do to force their hand and get a foot in the door. In a number of cases, it will be a risk worth taking.