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March 22, 2004
How Does a Company's CCE Initiative fit With Thier Ad Agency?
So many corporate marketing initiatives that I've seen are driven by ad agencies. That's become even more apparent now that I'm on that side of the fence and working more with agencies doing work for clients. In my experience, ad agencies are not the most "innovative" when it comes to new techniques, technologies, or methods that do not involve creating ads or print pieces.
How does a company's Customer Evangelism efforts fit into the client agency relationship? Have you encountered any agencies which adovcate customer evangelist principles and develop/support programs to build CE initiatives within client companies (besides yours)?
In a recent client meeting, I encountered a perfect opportunity to introduce some CE techniques, yet the agency would hear nothing of it. My fear is that they uptake of valuable programs like this will take exponentially longer if companies are using marketing and ad agencies as their filters for ideas or to set their frame of reference on what's "new, cool and effective" in the world of marketing. (Not that WOM is that new anyway, but to some it's a very new concept - evangelism is even edgier in some circles)
According to Ben, The ad agency model is optimized for mass-media purchases. Most of their profit arrives from commissions on purchased media, or the billable hourly rates of their people. This model incents agencies to dream up marketing strategies that optimize the model. Unfortunately for them, the effectiveness of traditional media are declining in effectiveness, especially network TV, and clients are demanding more accountability for their dollars.
Conversely, customer evangelism strategies are built atop authentic, grassroots tactics to stimulate word of mouth. Organizations focused on word of mouth are driven by customer-focused people who demonstrate their commitment to two-way customer relationships, not one-way broadcasts.
To our knowledge, very few traditional agencies focus on grassroots marketing. The Richards Group in Dallas tried last year with blogs for its client, Dr Pepper. Noticing that blogs are usually written by influencers and opinion leaders, Richards compiled a database of bloggers, their demographics and their audiences. They recruited and paid teenage bloggers to help market Dr Pepper's new milk drink, "Raging Cow." Very quickly a backlash against the campaign developed as the blogger community discovered the bloggers' endorsements were actually disguised advertorial content. Too often, agencies undermine the truth to accelerate results.
Agencies tend to dream up inauspicious grassroots strategies that stretch the truth or are outright deceptive. For instance, a disastrous Sony/Ericcson program in which actors roamed the streets of New York City pretending to be lost but would show off their new Sony/Ericcson cell phone won a scathing write-up in the Wall Street Journal and the attention of the Federal Trade Commission. Also shady: liquor companies paying attractive women to hit on unsuspecting men in bars by talking up a specific vodka.
Jackie Huba and I spend the majority of our time writing, speaking and evangelizing the tenets of customer evangelism. The rest of the time is spent training companies on how to do it themselves and facilitate the creation of a customer evangelism plan. In the end, the client must own a customer -focused strategy. Management and employees must live it.
You can't outsource your soul to an agency.
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