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I’ve spent almost all of my career, as the founder of ASK US FOR IDEAS, introducing marketers to the right agencies – and I’ve seen practically every stage and permutation of creative collaboration.
On the one hand: I’ve seen brands trying to hire elite-level talent with a budget they dug up from the back of the sofa, and I’ve seen marketers refuse to even meet an agency because they don’t like their website. On the other, I’ve watched brands and agencies make transformative work that’s upended an entire sector; and I’ve seen people become the closest of friends as well as long-term creative collaborators.
While the industry press talks about beautiful branding projects, and brands talk about sector-defining marketing, we miss the thing that powers all of this: finding the right people to collaborate with.
Lots of people think brand-agency partnerships go wrong partway through a project – and sometimes they do – but I think the wrongness happens much earlier, when brands are looking for someone to work with. Marketers understandably prioritise measurable metrics: can this team work to my budget? Do they have experience in this sector? Have they worked with brands I admire? Those conversations miss out on something very critical: chemistry.
That might sound like a wishy-washy term, but collaboration without chemistry is a punch-up. In its absence, everything falls apart.
And that intangible, elusive sense of chemistry is more important than ever before. In the past, a brand would hire an agency, they’d disappear for six weeks and then come back with ideas. Collaborations happened much further apart.
But now, brands and agencies are intertwined. Creative teams want brands to be more involved in the creative process and marketers are keen to be so. We know this, because we’ve seen so many briefs talking about ‘embedded’ partnerships, and marketers telling us they want an agency to become a true extension of the brand – not a paid-for, one-and-done gun-for-hire.
In this context, the best collaborations are less like bringing on a consultant or external vendor, and more like working with a colleague that you deeply trust. Creative partnerships have to survive the strain of working through the knots of an idea. Marketers have to trust their agencies, and they have to feel comfortable with them provoking and challenging them. When the going gets tough – and it always does, because great creative work doesn’t materialise like fairy magic – you need that foundation to stop the entire tower coming down.
Creative partnerships have to survive the strain of working through the knots of an idea.
Don’t just hire an agency for their sector experience, or because they’re the team your biggest competitor hired three years ago. And don’t only look for agencies with well-burnished reputations (although these are usually hard-won).
They’re all valid reasons to want to work with someone, but shiny reputations and slick case studies don’t automatically make an agency the best fit for you, specifically. Focus on the team you’ll be working with and ask: who am I connecting with, the person, or the last project the agency shared? Take the time to dig a bit deeper; ask if the people that handled that project you love are still on the team, and if they’re the ones you’ll be working with.
If you want work that surprises, delights, shifts perceptions and connects with your audience in a new and compelling way, you have to hire the people, not the case studies. Sometimes that will be the agency with years of experience in your sector, and sometimes it’s the team that, on the surface, are less of an obvious fit – the people that bring an unexpected perspective. Either way, it comes back down to that foundational chemistry fit.
You have to hire the people, not the case studies.
Good collaborations also need marketers to be as open and honest as possible. Tell your prospective agency what it’s like working with you and your organisation. Be clear about what’s expected of them, how internal stakeholders work, if there’s any big personalities involved and what kinds of processes you follow.
If you know your business is fast-moving and messy, communicate that. If your brand oozes along at a glacial pace, tell your potential agency partner. This way, both sides can understand if that innate feeling of chemistry is really there – aside from the flashy portfolios, and in full knowledge of the challenges ahead.
From there on out, it takes time and commitment – some of the best brand x agency relationships I’ve seen have been years in the making, not weeks or months. Chemistry is the kernel of great collaborations, but the exciting part is what then grows around that.
Nick Bell is the co-founder of ASK US FOR IDEAS, a creative matchmaker that connects ambitious businesses with the world's most remarkable agencies. He's been introducing brands to agencies for the last 15 years, and counts Chanel, Loop Earplugs, Wise and Common Goal among AUFI's clients.
I’ve spent almost all of my career, as the founder of ASK US FOR IDEAS, introducing marketers to the right agencies – and I’ve seen practically every stage and permutation of creative collaboration.
On the one hand: I’ve seen brands trying to hire elite-level talent with a budget they dug up from the back of the sofa, and I’ve seen marketers refuse to even meet an agency because they don’t like their website. On the other, I’ve watched brands and agencies make transformative work that’s upended an entire sector; and I’ve seen people become the closest of friends as well as long-term creative collaborators.
While the industry press talks about beautiful branding projects, and brands talk about sector-defining marketing, we miss the thing that powers all of this: finding the right people to collaborate with.
Lots of people think brand-agency partnerships go wrong partway through a project – and sometimes they do – but I think the wrongness happens much earlier, when brands are looking for someone to work with. Marketers understandably prioritise measurable metrics: can this team work to my budget? Do they have experience in this sector? Have they worked with brands I admire? Those conversations miss out on something very critical: chemistry.
That might sound like a wishy-washy term, but collaboration without chemistry is a punch-up. In its absence, everything falls apart.
And that intangible, elusive sense of chemistry is more important than ever before. In the past, a brand would hire an agency, they’d disappear for six weeks and then come back with ideas. Collaborations happened much further apart.
But now, brands and agencies are intertwined. Creative teams want brands to be more involved in the creative process and marketers are keen to be so. We know this, because we’ve seen so many briefs talking about ‘embedded’ partnerships, and marketers telling us they want an agency to become a true extension of the brand – not a paid-for, one-and-done gun-for-hire.
In this context, the best collaborations are less like bringing on a consultant or external vendor, and more like working with a colleague that you deeply trust. Creative partnerships have to survive the strain of working through the knots of an idea. Marketers have to trust their agencies, and they have to feel comfortable with them provoking and challenging them. When the going gets tough – and it always does, because great creative work doesn’t materialise like fairy magic – you need that foundation to stop the entire tower coming down.
Creative partnerships have to survive the strain of working through the knots of an idea.
Don’t just hire an agency for their sector experience, or because they’re the team your biggest competitor hired three years ago. And don’t only look for agencies with well-burnished reputations (although these are usually hard-won).
They’re all valid reasons to want to work with someone, but shiny reputations and slick case studies don’t automatically make an agency the best fit for you, specifically. Focus on the team you’ll be working with and ask: who am I connecting with, the person, or the last project the agency shared? Take the time to dig a bit deeper; ask if the people that handled that project you love are still on the team, and if they’re the ones you’ll be working with.
If you want work that surprises, delights, shifts perceptions and connects with your audience in a new and compelling way, you have to hire the people, not the case studies. Sometimes that will be the agency with years of experience in your sector, and sometimes it’s the team that, on the surface, are less of an obvious fit – the people that bring an unexpected perspective. Either way, it comes back down to that foundational chemistry fit.
You have to hire the people, not the case studies.
Good collaborations also need marketers to be as open and honest as possible. Tell your prospective agency what it’s like working with you and your organisation. Be clear about what’s expected of them, how internal stakeholders work, if there’s any big personalities involved and what kinds of processes you follow.
If you know your business is fast-moving and messy, communicate that. If your brand oozes along at a glacial pace, tell your potential agency partner. This way, both sides can understand if that innate feeling of chemistry is really there – aside from the flashy portfolios, and in full knowledge of the challenges ahead.
From there on out, it takes time and commitment – some of the best brand x agency relationships I’ve seen have been years in the making, not weeks or months. Chemistry is the kernel of great collaborations, but the exciting part is what then grows around that.
Nick Bell is the co-founder of ASK US FOR IDEAS, a creative matchmaker that connects ambitious businesses with the world's most remarkable agencies. He's been introducing brands to agencies for the last 15 years, and counts Chanel, Loop Earplugs, Wise and Common Goal among AUFI's clients.
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