Shay Boyd is Managing Director of Clay London. We first noticed Clay when they were featured in a recent Marketing magazine supplement on Experiential agencies. He stood out from the crowd. We introduced ourselves and got chatting… the result is below.
Did you get any business from the supplement?
No – we did a piece last year and for us it’s more about pitting ourselves against the big agencies in a format where you can give clients an insight into the way we do business. A general PR statement of intent about how we like to work.
A few incoming links came in from the micro-site.
Clients can either use these as tools to filter “what I need from agencies”, it provides insight and a benchmarking process. I think from a biz dev point of view it is an interesting reference. You pull people round that process. We can’t do that to the level and most agencies don’t.
I wanted to write something that people think “that’s quite interesting to read”. Marketing should be memorable and make people stop and think.
I went to the pre-gig before the experiential piece – they had the agencies meet over lunch. I think everyone wants to make marketing very complex and difficult. We think it is a very simple science and it needs to be approached in this way. We weren’t like the other agencies.
Marketing doesn’t start being complex and end up being simple.
It is hard to not get on a soapbox and namecheck clients and jobs you have done in a supplement like that without looking bad. You have to get people to stop and think about experiential.
How did the supplement work for Marketing magazine?
They probably feel they should be doing something as all-encompassing as total comunication. Because Marketing magazine is all about an industry that should be working like that.
Tell us a bit about Clay London
We started 2001 as a specialist sports marketing agency / consultancy and we did a lot of work with sports and TV companies on the advisory side. We grew from that into an agency format and we took on work in different sectors. Clients liked us and referred us to do other work.
Most was idea-generated new business wins followed by more creative campigns by former clients. This was driven more by market factors but we were around at the right time to take advantage of the opportunity.
We started to work with specialist agencies in sales promo – we struggled to get that end of the buisnes delivered how we would have liked it done. We now deliver that as well as the strategy end for clients – this works well from a control and evaluation point of view. Clients want to know what the get.
Unless you control all this it is hard to say what is achievable and measurable and what is worth finding out.
So how does your Biz Dev work now?
We have always had this philosophy – we do less running around and pitching and more talking to clients to establish whether they are interested in doing the work - was it a strategic part of their brand, were they committed to doing it before we even start to deliver creative ideas.
Running round chasing everything is a waste of time. If you leave your best ideas in the client’s boardroom they get picked up and used later without you.
I believe that at the outset you say to clients if you are prepared to do a competitive pitch.
If you pitch 5 good big agencies you’ll probably get what you want. If you want specialist insight into the areas where we focus we will probably win the pitch.
How do you think biz dev is changing?
Agencies are now having a more structured approach and are more streamlined. If biz dev gets caught in between pitching and looking to get agencies to pitch then I think some agencies are being more selective about where you put your time and energy. But unless the client has a latent intent to do something about their brand you will be wasting energy.
There has to be commitment from clients to match with your ability.
I think the involvement of senior marketeers in pitches is good that works for agencies that are good. They flush out those who are not. It enables agencies to present their area of specialism and to put their case forward. The experiential essays were part of this – someone can read them and if they are interested by your thinking they can check out your website.
People are now happy to look at things that can be delivered quickly and in interesting format like social media. And you can use these tools to talk about things that are topical, make them relevant and give your insights or appraisal of what’s been done. Just like you do on the CAS blog. Thanks for the compliment, Shay.
Tags: clay london, shay boyd
