By Simon Corbett, chief innovation officer, Slingshot
In Australia’s media landscape, one principle should stand above all: client success. Yet, many agencies prioritise their revenue over results. It’s time to reassess our priorities. As a media agency, we should take the long view and be willing to reallocate some of our media budget back to the creative agency when needed.
We’ve done it before, and we’ll do it again.
This isn’t about charity or altruism. It’s about understanding the real driving force behind any campaign: creativity. Kantar research shows that creative quality is the biggest driver of salience, accounting for 50% of the outcome. Brand salience – the degree to which your brand is noticed or thought about during a buying situation – is crucial for campaign effectiveness.
What happens when the creative idea hits a financial wall and the client can’t offer more money? What if the production budget doesn’t stretch to optimise the idea for each channel? Too often, the campaign suffers, and with it, our collective potential for success. We need to stop that. If reallocating a little of the media budget can deliver extraordinary results, we should be prepared to do it. If we’re committed to achieving the best outcomes for our clients, we must be willing to make sacrifices.
It goes without saying that clients must ensure the creative agency has a sufficient budget to fulfil the idea. But in tough times, and with the explosion of channels and complexity in the production process, too often there is not quite enough for the creative agencies to ensure their messaging is fit for channel and purpose. And effectiveness suffers when that happens.
We believe that how you behave in media can build and differentiate a brand just as strongly as creative. We are confident we can achieve this, even with a slightly reduced media budget. However, a brilliant creative idea, perfectly executed for each channel, can transform a campaign from mediocre to magnificent.
To demonstrate our commitment to creative effectiveness, we have been investing time and money into developing Creatalytics – a proprietary tool that combines creativity and analytics to amplify the return on creative investment. As a media agency, we feel obligated to do everything we can to ensure campaign performance. Helping clients and creative agencies exploit each channel by making it perfect for format is our investment.
Some might argue that this approach undermines the media agency’s value. To those critics, I say: what’s the point of hoarding budget if the end result is a lacklustre campaign? Have faith in yourselves and push to do more with a little less, amazing media strategy and execution can still happen.
Consider this a call to arms. Be proactive. Have the difficult conversations. Make bold decisions. Support your client and your creative agency partner, showing them both that you are genuinely invested in their success and believe in the power of creativity to drive results.
In the end, it’s not just about being a good media agency. It’s about being a great one. Greatness demands courage, innovation, and sometimes a willingness to sacrifice. Because when the client wins, we all win.
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Top image: Simon Corbett