What makes a great agency partner?

Retailers everywhere choose their marketing, strategy and comms partners in a few tried-and-true ways.

• The pre-existing relationship – an old favourite for all parties;
• A quick scan of the “who’s hot” lists;
• A quick scan of the “who’s cheap” lists;
• Looking at who’s got deep category or category-adjacent experience;
• Pitch consultants.

All of this gets you to the long-list stage. Maybe to the short list.

Then the contact and conversations begin. Every suitor will bring out the credentials and bend over backwards to demonstrate they understand your business and its best interests. They’ll be super nice, have a point of view and probably a proprietary method that will get you where you need to be. Yes, yes, good, good.

But there are a few unsaid things to be considered if you want to ensure you’re allowing the best chance of success into your corner.

They place unusual importance on how you measure success

Every agency will say they’re in the results game. I mean, you are too, right? You’ve probably got KPIs and dashboards and stakeholders breathing down your neck, same as anyone. But your partners are here to make those results better. So be transparent with them.

Tell them where you are, where you want to go, but most importantly, share with them how their work is tracking across every available metric. If they ask for this kind of info upfront and follow up on it often, it means they want the results for their own case studies. That’s a good thing. It’s super easy and way too common for marketing campaigns to disappear into the ether with no one truly knowing how they went. If your partners demand to know because they use this info to reflect on their success, that’s gold.

They don’t pull their trousers all the way down

Every agency or partner values their work. They also REALLY want your business. There’s a lot of trousers pulling in the downward direction. Very few belts are even present. But don’t rule out the one with the fortitude to tell you “enough” when hitting price basements. It means they place a strong value on their work. Which means strong value on your work. And this, of course, requires great talent. A race to the bottom means less to pay for the kind of people who produce the very thing that got you interested. Expecting their other clients to pick up the slack and pay for the quality of your work isn’t sustainable.

You’re a big fish – and will be for a while

It’s easy to get sucked into the beauty pageant that is a pitch. But look at their client list. That will give you a true idea of what they look like when the clothes fly off. Are their clients numerous and sizeable? How does that compare with you? Put yourself in the shoes of the creative department, or other relevant engine room. Do they do big, sexy work? Does yours compare? You’d want it to in order to receive the unfair share of attention you will inevitably be demanding of them.

Chemistry, not sycophancy

Chemistry is something anyone dealing with a pitch deems important. But what does it mean? Being nice to clients, having a laugh, getting along, saying yes a lot. They’re table stakes. Being friends is different from being friendly. There are people in any industry who are friendly but can come across as transactional. Look for depth, soul and straight talk. You might not like them straight away, but if you’re a half-decent judge of character, spend the effort to understand if you’ll grow professionally close. Or, the other way around, of course, identify and act fast on those little niggles before they turn into big red flags.

You can feel the fierceness

As a retailer or a retail marketer, your goal is to win whatever fight you’re in. Sometimes that might mean you need a collective of chin-strokers to help you think through it. Sometimes it means you need people who are going to use some street smarts and throw a few haymakers. If you hire a partner to fight for your business, then they should be battle-ready. That starts with passion. I love my clients. I mean, I fucking LOVE them. Over many years leading the Bakers Delight account, I was fanatical to the point of weird. My wife hated me for it, but I wasn’t hearing it. Evangelising isn’t a nine-to-five thing.

They solve agnostically

Your business problem is unique and requires a holistic solution. It doesn’t take much searching to see that in the current landscape, small specialty businesses are starting to dominate. And you can almost guarantee their solution will be the very service in which they specialise. But is it the best or only solution? If your problem is as specific as that, then fill your boots. If not, demand broader, more lateral, integrated thinking.

It’s nice to be important but…

Being nice, while still being frank, is crucial if you’re after a team willing to walk over the hot coals you’re about to lay out in front of them. If they don’t respect you, they’ll half-arse it. If they sense you’ll throw them under the bus as soon as times get tough, they’ll lose heart. I’ve seen it a lot – not from me, of course. I’m perfect. Suppliers sell you stuff, partners are invested in your success. Pretty bloody obvious, but I’ll continue to bang that trumpet until I’m long gone.

I’m sure there are more, but these points are important to keep top of mind. Tenders are slow and laborious, and as a result usually end up being an incredibly close call. With these notes in mind, stuffing up at the final hurdle may just be a little less likely.

Dom Megna is the executive creative director at integrated advertising agency Spinach.

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