Advising on selection of appropriate creative services
What we do
The way in which creative services are acquired often influences the quality and effectiveness of the work produced by suppliers. Clients generally veer towards one of two extremes, either seeking out the company with the brightest reputation within the industry for their creative work or, at the other extreme, concentrating solely on cost and looking only at the most competitive providers.
It seems unlikely that an organisation would make that kind of mistake, but often we find that the selection process can be subtly diverted from its true course and this is how it ends up.
By setting out in detail the organisation’s requirement for creative services, sensible criteria can be agreed and all supplier applicants measured fairly against it.
At Town & Town we regularly manage this process for clients, and in situations where confidentiality is required, suitable applicants can be selected and shortlisted whilst shielding the client’s identity.
Here’s a situation you may find familiar…
Sam had been charged with beefing up the marketing operation in the UK. This was his first meeting with two new senior marketing execs, Chloe and Vic, and they had very different ideas about the way forward. Chloe was keen to use the agency from her old fashion brand, while Vic wanted to go with a set-up in Singapore who ‘could beat anyone in the UK on price and worked on jobs overnight’. Sam wasn’t convinced either way.
Finding a solution
“Well, I can see both these agencies making a valuable contribution to the business,” Sam said, “so here’s an idea. Let’s get someone in who can independently assess our needs, draw up a list of requirements – a complete specification of all the tasks that need taking care of, both here in the UK and in all our other offices. That way we keep emotion out of the decision.”
Resulting benefits
Armed with a clear specification, Sam was able to quantify the requirement and recruit suitable agencies accordingly, confident that he was embarking on a number of solid, ongoing contractual relationships. By choosing this route, he avoided the pitfalls of the ‘one size fits all’ solution in which both strategic and tactical marketing objectives are rarely well served.