Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Why I went to the client-side

+ Earlier this year I went from the agency world to client side. And within the past year I've seen plenty of other ad friends do the same. Why the migration to "the dark side"?

For me, having spent the prior 6 years at a digital agency (I know, that's forever in ad years), I wanted to get my hands on more pieces than just social and interactive again.

From a storytelling standpoint, I found that I wanted to be working on helping craft those stories for clients. It meant I was interested in looking at opportunities that provided more integrated thinking, strategy and creative challenges. There are a few agencies that do this well, but many are still specializing based on a medium.

In my experience I've found that many clients only saw a digital agency as able to handle certain aspects and when there was great thinking for other pieces of the business it was ignored until the "appropriate" agency presented it. I think that's sad and a miss for clients. And when agencies try to work together for their client, egos almost always get in the way. Everyone knows one agency is the "lead" but often it becomes a pissing match as they are all vying for a larger piece of the pie, which means a piece of another agency's revenue or work.

As much as I am into the nitty gritty of HOW brand stories come to life, I also want to explore the brand strategy components from a creative narrative perspective to craft what those threads are that run through all the touch points of a brand. To do so required getting embedded at a brand and helping bring all the pieces together.

I think many clients/brands underestimate the value of establishing these story lines for their brand. Because whether it's a spot or a tweet, they all should fit some how into the larger story for who you are and what you stand for.

And, sure there are probably a few other things that are contributing factors for going in-house. But that's another post for another day.

No comments :

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...