In response to last week's backlash against media agencies proposing they are paid for ideas, Mindshare's Katie Rigg-Smith goes on the offensive.
"Forgive me for believing what may be an industry fable but as the story goes, a well known brand of spicy sauce was looking to increase consumption.
The agencies were briefed to find a solution. Each agency came back with ways to use big communication to solve the problem. The final agency walked in, placed the bottle in the middle of the table and simply said ‘make the opening bigger’. Ingenious original thinking and undoubtedly if applied would have solved the business issue significantly more than four weeks of a TVC ever could.
So answer me this – does the agency that came up with that idea deserve to be rewarded for their thinking despite the fact that they wouldn’t necessarily be the ones executing the new packaging?
It seems the mere suggestion last week that agencies be encouraged to find business solutions, that may not always be their agency’s remit to execute and that they are remunerated for that thinking regardless of whom will bring the idea to life, caused somewhat of a furore.
I must admit the reaction intrigued me. Was it the words ‘idea’ and ‘media’ placed in the same sentence that ruffled so many feathers or was it the contentious thought that an old business model be re-evaluated that drew fear from the more traditional amongst us?
If you subscribe to the notion of ‘no-line’ thinking then you will realise the need for media and creative agencies in particular to craft solutions which may not always be theirs to bring to life. This is even more pertinent when you overlay the paid, owned, earned model.
The purist in me likes to believe it simply shouldn’t matter if the channel solution actually means that 100% of the budget goes towards changing the packaging or creating a new line of toilet sprays which have extracts of books on them (as seen in a Cannes winner this year) as long as it delivers the client an effective solution.
Far from being such an outlandish thought, clients must already see the value in this as most have their agency on retainer and are paying for strategy regardless of where it will get executed. That was merely the point of the entire conversation. Conversely, I do agree it is the agency’s responsibility to not under value their thinking and simply be subsidising for it in production fees or commission rates.
As for our media partners, they too should be rewarded for their thinking. I can personally say I have never once taken an idea from a media vendor and then made it happen without them being involved and rewarded accordingly.
No matter where you end up in this debate it is great to see an open conversation being had because as anything and everything can now be considered a ‘channel’ it is going to be increasingly more important that agencies are encouraged to start with neutral thinking and are brave enough to recommend that the client make the opening to the bottle a bit bigger if that is the best way to generate a result."
Katie Rigg-Smith
Chief Strategy Officer
Mindshare
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