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28.01.09
The client side of the story, part two
A week or so ago we revealed the results of our not-very-extensive survey into how clients get pummeled by agencies as the recession takes hold. Part one concentrated on the bad, for part two we’ll share some of the observations some of our clients had about good agency approaches.
One client, albeit jokingly, suggested that this free doughnut (pictured above) was a big draw for him. Luckily he then cited a real approach that he liked, which was an agency who set up a one-off project on the understanding that if it won an effectiveness award, they would be rewarded with place on the client roster. Interesting (but a bit dependent on those ‘effectiveness’ juries wethinks).
The same client actually seemed genuinely taken by an agency that sent him real, actual, useful things that they’d worked on. ‘I filled a wall in my house the other day with the Polyfilla they sent me in September, the birds in my garden are doing very well on the Bill Oddie bird food they sent me in August. There’s something about actually having the product in my hands that has made that new business drive stand out from the crowd that bit more effectively.’
But the ‘send the clients some gimmicky stuff and hope they remember us’ approach can backfire. Point 4 of this quick hit-list of advice to all agency business development people, supplied by a different client, shows the danger of too many lollipops:
1. Let Your Work Speak For Itself. Believe it or not, we in-house folk actually do want to see good work, and talk to creative people, and find fresh ideas. So focus on that. And if you’re a new agency with a thin portfolio, don’t exaggerate or big yourself up - because You Will Be Found Out. Just tell us the truth - tell us you’re a new, energetic agency, with bags of talent, that you want to build your portfolio, and are there any small projects you could do with us as a tryout? 2. Don’t speak corporate waffle. We get several agency sales calls each day so we have very little time to listen to meaningless platitudes. We know you’re working hard and you have a tough job, but we're not going to buy anything out of sympathy! 3. You want to stand out? Then just tell us what you do. Almost nobody does this. And tell us who you’ve worked for, why you’re calling, and ask if you can pop in for half an hour at our convenience. Even better, offer us a coffee nearby (lunch is too big a commitment for a first meeting). You should be able to do all that in about three minutes. 4. If you want to send anything... ...send us examples of your work - e.g. a simply laid out case study (detailing what you actually did) or even better a Year Book. And please stop sending me lollipops. 5. Finally, Listen. Try to have a Conversation. When we speak back, we're usually trying to say something, as opposed to just punctuating your pre-prepared script. All you have to do is feel our pain and half the battle is won...
Great stuff. Thanks to Tom and Joe for their thoughts and time.
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24.01.09
Recession spend = success?
We’ve had quite few emails about the question posed a few days ago: whether anyone can provide some figures to show that spending in recessions can equal success. Chris from 3 fish in a tree suggested that ‘Apple increased their R&D spend during the dot com crash and came up with the iPod. Surely that counts?’ Well, yes, maybe that does but we’re still looking for some hard stats on that, to be honest.
Mike Rigby wrote in to remind us of this presentation The Economist released recently on spending through a recession. Here are some more choice slides: 
As Mike points out himself, ‘obviously the Economist has an ever so slightly vested interest in keeping ad spend high during the recession’, which is a good point. But the full presentation is worth a look, and is quite illuminating. If you’re prepared to give out your email details to a large advertising agency (Ogilvy) you can go to their dedicated recession website (ogilvy on recession.com) here and download various pdfs crammed with stats and charts (example below). 
The executive summary of most of this is that products and brands that trade on their ‘brand’ for their competitive edge could have a lot to lose if they go dark in troubled times. (Trust an ad agency to have a dedicated recession site. Thanks to Rebecca Caroe for the tip).
Some digging of our own has discovered the following two examples, quoted extensively on the web, with more detail here.
‘McGraw-Hill Research analyzed 600 companies covering 16 different SIC industries from 1980 through 1985. The results showed that business-to-business firms that maintained or increased their advertising expenditures during the 1981-1982 recession averaged significantly higher sales growth. By 1985, sales of companies that were aggressive recession advertisers had risen 256% over those that didn't keep up their advertising! In analysis of the 1990-91 recession, Penton Research Services, Coopers & Lybrand, in conjunction with Business Science International, found that cuts in advertising during a recession decrease net income over the long haul. Companies that maintained advertising during the recession enjoyed measurably higher net income gains not only during the recession, but even more so, two years after the recession’. But we’d still love to find more good evidence, especially from those without a vested interest. If you can share it, please email info at johnsonbanks dot co dot uk.
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19.01.09
The client side of the story, part one
Usually in recession, those of us in the communications industries put our heads down, try really, really hard not to get fired by bosses (or clients), shop at pound/dollar/100yen shops and ride out the storm. In the last full-scale UK recession in the early nineties I was once presented with a stark choice – redesign a soap powder pack or lose your job (it was Radion, if you must know, I did it with teeth firmly gritted and left 6 months later).
But my recession stories are not today’s topic: you can already read other people’s online, discuss whether it’s good or bad for design, get Steven Bayley’s view, set up a support group, discuss it on Facebook, yada yada yada.
What intrigues me more is that urban-marketeers-myth, that ‘clients that spend well in recession come out stronger’. Ask around and you’ll find that no-one can attribute this piece of insight to anyone, anyone at all. As Jeremy Bullmore succinctly pointed out in last week’s Campaign ‘if you’re getting tired of this same old mantra, just think how your clients are feeling. They’ve just had their worst fourth quarter since 1933, they’re bracing themselves to lay off 12% of their marketing department… …and you, the airhead from the agency, sidle in to tell them that all they have to do is hold their nerve and their advertising budget’. If anyone could send me some actual hard physical evidence of anyone proving that in recession the answer is to spend, I’d love to see it.* In the meantime, Bullmore’s comments reminded me that we don’t hear enough from the client-side in trickier times, and that late last year I’d asked some of our own for their view. Could they give us any tales of ridiculous/good approaches from agencies that they were prepared to share? I thought the trail had gone cold immediately when a client at the Royal Mail admitted that ‘unfortunately I can’t think of a single time when someone did something outrageous - good or bad - to get work from us. Maybe because of the connection to the Queen, but I do find people are quite dignified when approaching us.’ But things improved drastically when a marketing client at a FTSE 100 company sent me this fantastically typical phone transcript…
CALLER: ‘Hi, (client name here) you may recall we spoke [3; 6; 9; 12] months ago at [the DBA/D&AD/Benchmarks/DW Awards; that conference you can't remember attending; Sainsbury’s] just thought I’d drop you a line to see how you’re getting on’
ME: ‘Oh, hi, yeah how are you? (secretly thinking how did they get through our dragons on reception?)
CALLER: ‘That's great’ (clearly not listening) ‘Well I just wanted to say that we’ve been really busy here doing some fantastic work on [insert unrelated client work] and would really like to come and present to you’
ME: ‘Oh right that sounds fascinating (by now I've read three of four emails and will be halfway through responding to two of them) It’s just that we’re pretty busy to be honest but if you’d like to send me your details in the post...’
CALLER: ‘Mmmm, yeah well the thing is we’d really like to come in and see what you think of the work’
ME: (now quite annoyed that I can't concentrate on the email I’d like to send) Well if you send me the project details in the post I will keep them on file and when we’re ready to conduct a review of our roster your details will be at hand for shortlisting purposes (this is a well practiced and oft repeated speech) as I'm sure you’ll understand it's important to the agencies already on our roster that we operate with integrity and review on an annual basis so send me your details and I will add them to the file.
CALLER: (realising they’ve hit a brick wall) Thanks for your time (hang-up)
Another client at a worldwide charity sent me their list of ‘top ten annoying agency sales traits’.
1. When the salesperson doesn’t have a clue what they're selling: “Um, we do communication strategies for clients and websites and stuff, and we’re really strategic.”
2. When the USP isn’t really a USP: “What's different about us is that we believe that in the post-advertising age, every touchpoint should work really hard for your brand.”
3. When they pretend to know you. “Hiiiiii [insert name here] !!! How are you!! Really great to hear your voice again!!!!!!”
4. When they pretend they were recommended by one of your colleagues (when actually you colleague bounced their call): “Yuh, I was just speaking to Debbie in Campaigns and she said I really MUST get in touch with you about some of the Amazing Work we’ve been doing with blah.”
5. When they won’t admit they’re trying to sell you something: “Is this a sales call?” “No no no, I just want to talk to you about some of the Amazing Work we’ve been doing with blah.” “OK, so you are definitely not trying to sell me anything? There’s absolutely no possibility that you would want to do any business with me?”
6. When they won’t go away after you’ve told them you’re not interested, and they force you to rudely hang up on them when you were trying to be polite.
7. When they send you something stupid and expensive through the post, like a lollipop, or a slinky, or a mousetrap. These go the recycling bin unread, because sending people stupid expensive things is a sure sign of Zero Creativity.
8. When they tell you that Microsoft is on their client list, but then admit they installed a Windows Vista pop-up stand at a shopping centre in Bournemouth.
9. When they tell you their MD is in the area tomorrow and offer you a once in a lifetime opportunity to meet them to see their Amazing Work and discuss a potential business relationship, diary permitting.
10. When they just can’t manage to tell you what they do. The majority of sales letters and phone calls offer no clue: “We work with clients to deliver Brand Value and Leading Edge Strategic Advantage throughout the Customer Experience." OK, so what do you do? Are you a design agency? Digital? Advertising? What. Do. You. Do!!?”
Anyone working in an organisation with a slightly over-zealous new business team should perhaps print out this post and leave it on their desk. If only for the sake of all of our clients’ sanity. Please.
Luckily, several of our clients have some positive advice too, but I’ll leave that to part two.
By Michael Johnson
(and three left-anonymous-for-their-own-sanity clients)
* seriously, we would love to see some hard stats that showed that recession spend = success.
Please email info at johnsonbanks dot co dot uk.
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15.01.09
Some recent timepieces
This is a collection of the responses that we’ve received for the ‘Time’ section of our main site over the last few months. (It’s an open brief where anyone can send in images on the theme of time). Liam McEntee sent us the rather philosophical image above. Meanwhile Danny Elliott, studying at Lincoln, realised that he had kept his payslips for a part-time job for 15 months, and that there was a monotonous regularity to them.
Martin Warner sent us this, with no explanation. Needs none, really.
Shaun Hughes decided to ‘show the idea of time through physical state’. ‘I set about it by the idea of 2 books, one that was perfect and showed the original state, and the other was to be open to nature. Every week one poster was taken into the warmth of the house and left to dry.I designed and made 6 posters, there are 2 of each so to compare between the untampered version and the weathered one’.
Stacey Sedgwick keeps receipts for 12 years (weird huh?). So she can show us that in that time, chewing gum has doubled in price.
Shown below is Evelin Kasikov’s submission: ‘an experimental handmade poster where each square section represents continuous 15 minutes of work. Through these short time slots the inner structure of a CMYK image is visualised through hand embroidery. The poster consisting of 16 squares means it took four hours to complete the piece’.
Beci Stankiewicz has been thinking around the theme of ‘the big boss counting his money, money that has been earned through the hard work of his employees’.
Grant Barratt sent the image below with the following explanation: ‘Some of the oldest trees in the world are dated up to 5000 years old. Imagine some of the great historical figures they will have lived through and indeed, outlived. Ironic therefore that the one person they won't outlive is the most insignificant of the lot, and yet ultimately the one who will have the most historical significance in terms of the tree itself’.
Feel free to send us your ideas, the best ones will be posted here on thought for the week. Best to email them to info at johnsonbanks dot co dot uk.
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13.01.09
johnson banks on designboom
One of the new year’s resolutions we’ve been discussing in the studio is to ‘be nice’ (as in, if this is going to be an awful year, let’s at least be nice to each other). So maybe this has already had some affect? Only a few weeks after suggesting designboom as one of favourite design blogs, they’ve very kindly run a piece on us. You can see it here. You see – be nice. It might just work.
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09.01.09
The Heidelberg Project
One of the johnson banks team was back in the USA visiting relatives this Christmas, and took a special detour to one of the poorest parts on the east of Detroit to see The Heidelberg Project. This was started in 1986 by Tyree Guyton as a partly political reaction to the Detroit riots, and still survives today, despite two attempts by the city powers-that-be to demolish it. It attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors a year. There’s more on the project website here, and the wiki page is here. 
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05.01.09
Branding. Where next?
Doing big branding projects is stressful, time-consuming and expensive. Even world-beating routes need to be carefully steered past the occasional boardroom bully, then controversial changes have to be shared with staff, the public and the media. And even with the most thorough checks, an identical idea can turn up at any time, or the simplest aside from one director to another can kill it in its tracks.
So it’s unpredictable. And difficult. And of course everyone from cabbies to dinner party sages love to ‘have a go’: it’s easy meat for any journalist or blogger when they get hold of an Olympic logo, or suchlike. But the fact that everyone has an opinion is a positive – people are engaged (even if it’s critical engagement). You don’t see many internet discussions on the quality of a brochure, or tweaked pack design do you? Better to be debated than ignored, as Oscar Wilde might have said, were he to be re-incarnated as a brand consultant (now there’s an odd thought). 
If everyone’s started to cotton on to what branding and identity can really do, what happens now there’s a huge juggernaut with ‘recession’ written on it, parked across the highway? Well, everything stops while we try to find a way around it. The suspicion is that, just as there’s a ‘correction’ going on elsewhere, there’ll be one in branding. That may mean a ‘correction’ in terms of amount of people and firms actually doing it, but also a correction in the sense of language, cut-through, and value for money. 
It won’t be tenable for brand consultants to continue to unveil hundreds of slides on core-drivers-visions-dreams-stories-missions-purpose-big-small-unique-proposition-thingys. Life’s too short: the next brands will need to communicate fast, not slow. They’ll need less of that TM’d agency ‘black box’ hubble-bubble and more simple, memorable ideas that can be described on one page, not ten. Ideas that come through collaborating, sharing and development with clients, not guarding, ring-fencing and wars of attrition. They’ll need ideas that stand or fall within months and years, not decades. The future looks bleak for all those ‘me-too’, same-as-my-neighbour solutions. Why ‘look and feel’ like someone else when you could be like no-one else? Why be 4th, 5th or 6th in a sector? – there may not be room for more than a couple of strong brands. Stand out now, there may be no later. More people will ask ‘will it work?’ Always tough to prove, definitively, but as more and more brands are being tracked before change, it’s possible to at least estimate the value of a significant re-brand, after. There’ll be more schemes where ‘everything but the logo’ changes as clients see re-alignment as better value for money than wholesale change (and avoid a vast implementation bill). 
Some of this will be hard to deal with. But the upside is, the game has changed. A client wants their brand created or clarified long before it considers any other channels such as advertising, digital or direct mail. So it’s not unusual for clients to turn to us 18 months into a project and ask if we can help them find an ad agency – a galling turnaround for the traditional 30-second-TV-spot-driven ad agencies, but the smart ones have re-invented as multi-channel ‘ideas agents’ anyway. This is good time to be a brander (even if it may not feel that way). 
Another upside: whilst the blue-chips may be holed up in their bunkers (for a bit), that’s not stopping what we call the 4c’s (countries, cities, culture and charity). They’ve seen their chance to embrace branding, and it’s here that most of the best and most challenging schemes will be seen. Eventually the blue-chips will get their confidence back, and when they do they’ll look sideways at the 4c’s for inspiration. The best ideas will be cross-platform, and collaborative – the days of dinosaur agencies handing down advice from on high are numbered. The next generation of clients need flexible identities and flexible advice: as more and more design comes in house, their consultants will have to prove their worth as navigators and mentors for successful roll-out, just as much as still need impeccable credentials as concept-creators. 
And the common thread that they’re all intrigued by? The desire for more human brands and identity systems, that can adapt to circumstances. Identities that come out of the corner and into the heart of communications, that might have several different forms, or keep modulating for different audiences. Identities held together by a linking idea rather than specific placement of a logo or the precise point size of one typeface. Ideas that could become ads, installations, ambient, whatever suits. Identities that breathe, adapt, change and grow. Identities much like people, when you think about it.
This is an adaptation of a recent article for Design Week magazine by Michael Johnson. Illustrations by Julia Woollams.
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