New business agency blog

From a customer’s point of view, I had a certain amount of satisfaction reading about the outcome of the “Pinocchiogate” court case this week. I’m sure you would have heard it in the news, but the topline is that Ryanair ran some advertising in the press featuring Stelios Haji-Ioannou with a long Pinocchio nose and implying that Easyjet flights are usually late which is why they had not updated the “flights arriving on time” statistics on their website.

Having suffered numerous delays and other perceived injustices at the hands of both of these airlines more times than I would care to remember, the publicity surrounding this case made me smile for the following reasons:

Firstly, Michael O’Leary had to apologise “unreservedly” to Stelios for the slander (and pay him £50K plus court costs). That must be the first time Mr O’Leary has said sorry to anyone who has been wronged by Ryanair without adding words to the effect of “we’re the cheapest airline and Europe, so like it or lump it”. Must have been pretty hard for him to get those words out of his throat without choking I would imagine.

Secondly, even though Stelios won the court case, there may be a certain amount of negative publicity generated by the whole affair with people thinking “no smoke without fire” concerning Easyjet’s punctuality. My personal experience with them is that if you get the first flight of the day at 6am you’re generally going to arrive at your destination on time. If you get a flight in the evening though, well that’s another matter.

I’m now eagerly awaiting the next stage of their public relations war with bated breath.

I was at a meeting yesterday with a really interesting agency (genuinely imaginative, innovative and pioneering; they’ll know who they are if they’re reading this) and one of the most common objections for outsourcing business development to an agency like Alchemis came up.

The objection is similar to the emotional response of passing over your child to someone else (something most parents experience when their child first goes to a childminder or to school). Most of our clients are small-medium sized agencies and are owned and run by a founding partner, therefore handing over responsibility for contacting prospects and articulating their proposition on their behalf can initially prove unsettling. How can I entrust my child to another person? How will they able to put across my offer to prospects when they haven’t grown up with it? See how easily the experiences can get blurred…

The rational response to this is that someone from the outside can add great value to your business/child. We all fondly remember a teacher who made a difference to our lives by pointing us in a direction we hadn’t previously considered or opening our eyes to an author we hadn’t previously read. Run with the analogy and you’ll rationally understand that an outsider (with 23 years experience in this market) can add enormous value to your business, helping to refine your proposition to work in this current marketplace for example.

However, it’s the emotional objection that is the most difficult to overcome, which is why we always insist on our prospective clients meeting our team of New Business Managers prior to appointing us – the only way they will ever truly feel comfortable with handing over their child is by spending time with the childminder.

I echo the views of Martin Hamish of the IPA following the news that Thomas Cook are to demand a ‘signing on fee’ to the lucky agency who wins their business. The word Martin chose was ‘outrageous’ which pretty much reflects the views of most of our clients, who are typically creative, marketing and communications agencies.

This attitude of large brands and advertisers is having a major impact on the agency world and is one of the main reasons why we recommend getting our agencies ‘under the radar’.

This approach avoids the pain, expense and stretched resources of procurement and pitching which frankly most agencies can do without, particularly in this climate.