In his latest piece for Ad Age’s Small Agency Diary, Marc Brownstein of Brownstein Group in Philadelphia (not to be confused with the Disco Biscuit by the same name, in the same city), wisely encourages agency personnel to be proactive on their client’s behalf.
Clients hire us to understand their business, help them identify problems, and bring them solutions. Pretty simple charge, eh? Yet most agencies wait for the phone to ring from their clients, asking the agency to solve a specific problem…
I heartily agree, but I’d like to go somewhere else with this highlighted passage.
There’s a concept loose in the land that random consumers, sometimes masquerading as aspiring filmmakers, can solve creative problems for a client. Wrong! You need to be deeply invested in a client’s business before you can bring real world solutions to the table. That’s not to say agencies can’t work with “the crowd” to find some ideas worth pursuing. Clearly, they can and do.
Okay, I’ll let you get back to understanding your clients’ businesses now.
