Excerpt from Ad Age: "How To Sell Creative Ideas To Risk Averse Clients"
"In some ways, creatives should blame themselves for the over-emphasis on performance marketing because several years ago there were a lot of PR stunts didn’t necessarily work to build a brand or drive sales."
https://adage.com/article/agency-news/how-agencies-can-sell-creative-ideas-risk-averse-clients/2585846
Obviously the excerpt I pulled is one of a hundred points made in this article (most of which are pretty well known at this point).
The point about PR stunts resonated with me because at least where I work it's the holy holy grail.
All of the "inspiration" posted to Slack or sent out by leadership as "work we're jealous of" is always PR stunts and rarely big campaign ideas. Client presos get stuffed with unasked for PR stunt ideas, most of which suck and would never get press even on a slow news day.
I feel that about PR stunts. A shop I work at was bought by a PR company and I truly don’t understand it. It seems so risky and honestly often more expensive than if they just made a traditional ad campaign, since so much really needs a celebrity in some way to get press.
It's funny that marketers love the data that shows the short-term impacts of performance marketing, but ignore the data in studies like How Brands Grow. The data is not the problem, the time frame is. They just want results next week and not a minute longer. And the really sad thing is, they're already profitable. They're financially stable. But they want more, RIGHT NOW! And so does everyone else, so no one makes any headway. The obvious solution would be to try something different, except that wouldn't satisfy the RIGHT NOW requirement, so we're stuck in a cycle of performance marketing and stressing about tomorrow's sales results. Lemmings, all of them.
you're smart CD2, i like you.
Full article behind paywall:
Creative is not an easy sell. It never was and it never will be.
Many marketers have become particularly cautious and risk-averse, whether to hit financial targets, avoid controversy or both. So it has become harder than ever to persuade clients to put money behind campaign ideas, according to more than a dozen people, including chief creative officers, other agency leaders, consultants and marketers, interviewed by Ad Age.
An over-reliance on performance marketing—an advertising investment that can be directly tied to a revenue gain—is killing creativity, said some agency executives frustrated at brands becoming even more risk averse than usual. They said brands over the last year have placed more of their budgets into this type of sales-driving marketing and away from disruptive, big-budget brand campaigns. As a result, brands have become more skittish with approvals, requiring agencies to back up every idea with research and that red tape is smothering ideas as departments, including financial, impede marketing decisions.
Some agency executives also said a greater focus on reaching younger generations, including Gen Z, has led some chief marketing officers to seek validation of creative ideas from more people, including junior employees, muddying the pitch process.
These executives say this timidity and consensus building too often results in a final campaign that has been stretched unrecognizably far from the original idea. Projects are even being canceled when a new insight emerges from the client that somehow calls the creative idea into question, according to some people interviewed.
And while none of this is new, these combined factors are starting to come to a head, some agency execs said.
“We’ve seen [marketing] get so performance-based and so much into the data that it’s really hard to get any of the bigger, fun ideas sold through,” said Brian Pettigrew, president of digital-focused performance creative agency TVGla, which prompted his agency to introduce new capabilities such as social media and performance marketing. “There’s so much data that it can create a bit of a paralysis. There’s so much attention on the sales right now, especially the public companies. Everything’s driven by quarter-to-quarter numbers. It’s really hard to take a chance on something that isn’t driving the performance.”
“In perfect conditions, great ideas sell themselves,” said Mona Munayyer Gonzalez, chief growth officer at Pereira O’Dell. “The slides that come before or after them play a role, but are ultimately inconsequential because the idea is that insightful, that breakthrough, that [it’s easy to think] ‘How has no one done this before?’ But perfect conditions rarely exist.
“You have clients walking into a room after receiving soft quarterly results, CMOs that are under immense pressure to show ROI and general pressure that you must do more with less. It’s enough of a pressure cooker to make the most ambitious, strategic clients insecure. And with insecurity comes fear, and making creative decisions out of fear never turns out well,” she said.
Some question what the long-term impact will be on brands focusing too heavily on performance marketing and not enough on branding and disruptive creative.
If a client is hyper-focused on performance marketing, it’s “ultimately a race to the bottom,” said John Geletka, founder of independent agency Geletka+.
“You go to performance marketing as almost a last-ditch effort to move the needle,” he said. “You lose margin, you lose brand loyalty. Performance marketing is just a short-term revenue generator.”
Several people interviewed pointed to Nike as a prime example of a marketer long hailed in the industry for its creativity—with campaigns such as “Is it the shoes?” with Michael Jordan and Spike Lee—that has lost its way by over-emphasizing performance marketing and, as such, has seen mass layoffs and sales declines.
Nike’s recent marketing decisions have sparked a debate in the creative industry with executives voicing their opinions on social platforms. One executive, Peter Lloyd, global CMO of Caribbean mobile phone network Digicel Group, wrote on LinkedIn that in recent years he’s preferred clothing brands such as OnCloud, New Balance, Alo, Lululemon and Hoka over Nike due to its lack of impactful marketing.
“Creating inspiring moments is key,” Lloyd wrote. “Performance marketing is essential, but it can’t be the only tool for growth or ROI.”
Nike, where Elliott Hill is returning from retirement to become president and CEO, did not return a request for comment. Nike’s longtime agency of record, Wieden+Kennedy, declined comment.
As Deezer’s Garrido said, marketers need to balance art and science to paint a full picture.
“For us, it’s all about really thinking about today’s best brands, balancing short-term growth and short-term brand sales” with “long-term brand building,” said Jaime Robinson, co-founder and chief creative officer of independent agency Joan.
Robinson said from the onset of a relationship, Joan “plots out what the marketer needs to accomplish to achieve their KPIs in the immediate term” and then answers: “How do we build the brand for the long term? It allows us to roll these efforts together,” she said.
If you are someone who wants to do “creativity for the sake of fun, or art or whatever, then go be an artist,” Robinson added. “Advertising is about listening and understanding and applying creativity to a problem.”
moves quickly, and if the marketing team is not comprised of individuals with different interests and backgrounds, it will be harder to get ideas approved that the client feels is worth the investment.”
“Many brands don’t truly understand their audiences and their interests,” Wade said. “They often think their customer base looks different than it does and don’t understand how multifaceted it is in today’s world. So, it’s hard to convince them that certain ideas will resonate with the customer, and they question the risk.”
“Selling the work isn’t the hardest part,” Mullen said, “the hardest thing is protecting the integrity of the idea once it’s sold.”
Mullen said she is happy that more stakeholders have a voice in marketing decisions and that it’s not like it was 10 or 15 years ago when “a creative director’s opinions ruled the world. Obviously different perspectives can also make the work better. It’s a little give and a little take. We’re much more accommodating as an industry these days.”
Still, some people said today’s red tape is affecting the quality of the work.
“I’d love to see better work,” Miller said. “It is kind of a bummer, some of the things that we’re seeing right now,” adding, “You can even get a sense when you watch something, you’re like, ‘Oh, I see what this was supposed to be and this is now what it looks like because it got watered down in like 14 meetings that led up to the review.’ It is a hard time to be daring, but I still think we have to try.”
Social media provides opportunity for risk
Social has become a playground for marketers to take risks because brands can run slightly different iterations of creative and easily test them at a lower cost.
“Where [brands are] experimenting are in places that maybe don’t have the high stakes of, say, a national TV buy,” Robinson said. “They’re experimenting in social, they’re experimenting in content, they’re experimenting in promotions. And, to me, there’s tons of creative opportunity there. How do you make something in social that is different than the standard sponsored post for a product?”
She advised creatives to “bring your biggest, baddest creative ideas to that. Social, in general, is low stakes because it’s not as expensive so if it doesn’t land, it’s no sweat. But if it does, wow, you become a hero.”
Social is also a great medium for “entertainment, engagements, deep storytelling,” she said, and pointed to Joan London’s “Vulva Therapy” campaign for body-care startup Luna Daily that had an out-of-home element but was primarily deployed on social. Created in November 2023, it featured bold ads with the word “VULVA” in all caps and directed anyone made uncomfortable by the word to call a “therapy hotline” to try to get more comfortable with it.
Robinson said the ad got 1 million impressions from organic social in two weeks (the word “vulva” is normally banned by Meta, so the agency couldn’t use paid) and that type of risky creative wouldn’t work in broadcast. “People are used to brands pushing the limits in” social media,” she said.
reassurance,” he said.
Merry said he’s also found it helpful to give clients several ideas: “What they expected, what they thought they were going to get, and then also something that they did not see coming.” He said they are much more “comfortable” and open to ideas in that scenario.
“Quicker, more insightful data can give a competitive edge and is a huge help to gaining the confidence of clients,” said Nat Swift, CMO of BarkleyOKRP. “But the key notion is confidence. Data helps, but more than anything the client and their counterparts need to feel like they’re in good hands with an agency. If they feel that you get their business—the nuts and bolts of how it operates—their priorities and their sensibilities, they’re much more likely to take a leap of faith with your big idea.”
Relationships matter
Trust and relationships are always key, and several people interviewed said they’re more important than any data.
Merry said having a good relationship with a client, in which you are talking to them continuously and not just “springing this amazing idea on them” is critical. He said agencies should also know their clients and shouldn’t expect a brand that has never taken a creative risk in the past to suddenly want to do that now.
In those instances, Merry advises to ask: “Is that going to change right now? … You have that conversation early on to try and sniff that kind of stuff out. Everyone says they want to do disruptive work, but it’s actually pretty hard to do.”
Holly Willis, CEO and founder of independent agency Magic Camp, said it’s important to have “extensive conversations” with clients on “their business goals and pressures, budget allocations and how to spend” early on, so everyone is generally on the same page about the types of creative ideas that will work and be approved.
Then, Willis said, agencies can use “data as a guide, not a rulebook. At the end of the day, data should support creative ideas, not limit them.”
Pro
Great creative is less risky than bad creative, bad creative is just plain and plain dangerous to your brand. Because it gets ignored and your consumer resents your spot.
YES