Creative Agency Secrets

Steve Moore has launched a new breakfast event, called One Morning, the launch was yesterday at the glamorous One Alfred Place business club.

Steve asked me to help out by chairing the three fabulous presentations - each one answering the question "What Happens Next?" for TV, book publishing and newspaper publishing.  I love doing this stuff… and being in the front row for three articulate and very persuasive presenters was a blast. 

I will summarise their arguments below - but for the New Biz Development readers of this blog, here are some short sharp actions

1 - Have you got any clients in publishing or broadcasting… send them here to read about what key organisations think will be happening in the future

2 - Do you ever put out campaigns on TV, newspaper or book publishing?  Send your account teams and planners here to think about what you will do in the future when those campaign methods no longer work. 

3 - come to the next event.  They are due monthly.  The sign up for this one is here … presume it will be updated.

Jeremy Ettinghausen is Head of
Digital Publishing at Penguin

The publishing world is polarising, books online and videos are leading the charge for technology versus traditional methods.  The scientific/technical/academic press is further along than consumer fiction. 

E-books started in 2001 and they still haven't really taken off 7 years later… but it may happen this year that they join the mainstream.

Books in print are not redundant yet.  But paid for digital content is increasing - the question is how much people will pay.  What is clear is that if your content is entertaining, valuable and drives a good user experience, there is an audience who will pay for it. 

However, reading habits are changing and how we view web pages affects our reading habits.  This is a non-linear process.

Looking forward, what is a publisher? Are they book makers and marketers and book distributors?  No more they are disseminators of entertainment and ideas.

A quote from Chris Heuer of the Conversation Group (at SXSW) "the Best stories will win". 

The vision is for the "integrated" book delivering image, sound, vision in multiple media.  I read, I get into my car and continue the story in audio….

Kevin Anderson is the Blogs Editor
at The Guardian

We are taking the tools that are disrupting our business model and applying them to our business.

New media does not support the traditional business model for newspapers because the young do not read newspapers.  We are not replacing old readers.

A news company needs a new vision and positioning and new audiences - not just for newspapers.

Industries need to identify their core market and focus on new markets in order to survive,  Open source tools enable editorial experimentation.  This is really important because at present it takes us 6 - 12 months for new product development.  We need to lower the cost and time of innovation. 

The business model is eroding advertising and uses outdated distribution and delivery methods.  WE need to innovate frequently and fast and 'fail forward' when the innovation cost is £0. 

Delivering into a community with connection is possible future for newspapers.

Matt Locke is a Commissioning Editor at Channel 4 

Befreo the mobile phone device we had more divisions between our public and private spaces.  Compare a phone box (private) with a mobile phone conversation (private or public?).

ATMs are the ultimate - a private transaction within a public space.  We develop body language to communicate our intention to be private while outside at an ATM.

The personal and social have replaced the private and public.  These are more fluid and the gestures and etiquette is different.  We need to understand this in broadcasting.,

What young teens find hard to understand about the world in 1990 is not the paucity of channel choice, it is the fact that in order to speak out publicly in 1990 you needed permission.  This is not needed today.  Talking in public is easy now.  

Key issues:

Data - being misused or mis-released.

Playfulness - find how technology can help your life and find play within it

Vernacular - what is the new language of who our relationships are with?

The goal for technologies that allow us to make the shift to personal and social.  And do it simply.l 

Cambridge Judge Business School's Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning does an annual residential course called "Igniting Enterprise"   It's a all-you-need to get started course where the attendees are expected to come with an idea for a new business that they can use as the model for all the lectures.  I think the focus is on business innovations.

Brochure download  

Last year I played a very small part in delivering the content - doing marketing advice to course members.

This year's course runs in Cambridge from 29th June to 5th July 2008.  It costs £1000 if you come as an individual and £3000 if a company is paying you to attend.   

These are not my questions… but they are good ones.  I have added in my own in italics.

1. What are "desirable" customer experiences, and how can you create them? And continue creating them regularly?
2. How can marketers turn customers into brand evangelists? 
3. And is WOM the only method they use to promote your brand?
4. Which social technologies help marketers better understand customer feelings, affinity, and sentiment? 
5. And how to engage through social media without appearing trite and mee-too-ish.
6. What is customer-centric marketing planning, and how should companies practice it? 
7. What is the role of marketing agencies in planning and supporting customer engagement? 
8. And how do specialist agencies collaborate around the client’s marketing campaigns in an appropriate manner?
9. How can you measure involvement, interaction, intimacy, and influence?
10. And do these 4 Is replace the 4 Ps of yesteryear?
11. How do B2B and B2C engagement tactics compare? And contrast.
12. How will marketing budgets change as a result of the focus on customer engagement?

I think the last question is spurious, customer engagement is far less of a force for change than media fragmentation…. but hey, that’s my view.

Any other things we should be planning for in 2008?

Mark McGuinness and I are hosting a breakfast event on November 22nd in central London.

It may be of interest to anyone who has to go and win new business for their agency.  Here’s the detail.

These days winning a pitch is harder than ever – more agencies, longer ‘short’ lists, time delays. You need every advantage to ensure your pitch gets the best possible chance of succeeding.

One of the factors that may contribute to success is an awareness of the personalities on the client team – so that you can play your presentation to appeal to their comfort zones and core instincts. Your pitch can also be more effective if it appeals to the values at the heart of the client’s company and brand.

Come and hear respected Business Coach Mark McGuinness, in conversation with Rebecca Caroe, talking about the Enneagram system of personality types and core values – and how this can help your team win more pitches.

Breakfast on 22nd November will be at Piccolino, Heddon Street, London W1B 4BG Arrive from 7.45 and we’ll start promptly at 8 am and be finished by 9 with networking until 9.45.

Hosted by Rebecca Caroe, the event will be a conversation during which the issues of successful business development and personality typing will be discussed – followed by your questions. To register e-mail  And we’ll send you all the info, plus Mark’s e-book An Introduction to the Enneagram to thank you for your interest.

If you can’t come but would like a free copy of Mark’s e-book please e-mail us and ask for a copy.

Please feel free to forward this invitation to any agency friends or colleagues who may be interested.

Download enneagramflyer.pdf

[the event invitation]

Mark McGuinness works with agencies to get the best out of their people. Mark is a poet and a business coach specialising in the creative industries. He is a qualified psychotherapist and holds an MA in Creative & Media Enterprises from the University of Warwick. His areas of expertise include creativity and managing and developing creative teams. He uses the Enneagram to help clients with a range business issues.
Mark’s coaching blog

These are things I enjoy and so do well.  I’ve done most of them many times and can give you references, if you need.

In no particular order….

1 - Mentoring and coaching anyone with business development responsibility or who has to collaborate with biz dev to do their job better and get results

2 - Moving the whole company to an Enterprise 2.0 operation.  This is a more open relationship with its customers and prospects though using web 2.0 techniques (for yourselves not clients) and creating the open culture internally that enables outsiders to recognise the ‘personality’ of the agency - bypassing traditional outbound communication methods

3 - Facilitating an away day for a client or your senior team

4 - Improving your new business methods and, particularly, pitching

5 - Running a training session on "New business for non-new biz people"

One of the most patronising things about our industry is the way we ‘categorise’ target audiences and then try to sell to them in their language.  So often this fails, dismally.

See the article below from the Economist…. it cites a JWT research into the 6m Muslims in USA who are

on average, richer and better educated than the general population…..

And you hounded them out after 9/11 like dogs…. see the book I just read by Marina Budhos "Ask Me No Questions" about one (fictional) family’s experiences at that time.  Grim reading from the home of the brave and the free.

Coke, cited in the article, seem to have the right idea…. it is NOT adapting its global brands to Muslim consumers. "We don’t segment out consumers based on religion".  Nicely put.

Reminded me of the Girl Geek Dinner Saatchi’s hosted back in May, where they were discussing how they thought they should advise brands on how to market technology to women.  Sooooo deeply mis-understood and patronising.  Sadly I signed an NDA and so can’t go into details…. but I wish, i wish…

(more…)

I work as a non-executive for a couple of my clients.  I came across this article from the Telegraph in which the differences and similarities of a non-exec and an interim manager are detailed.

detail below.

(more…)

I frequently work with clients on their biz dev - as a means of growing a business it is without compare IMHO.

I know my methods and there is a reasonably straightforward base template of activities and actions which then get customised for each situation (depending on experience, cash, skills and time available).

Two of my clients, Wave Creative Communications and Gabrielle Shaw Communications have kick-started their biz dev in the past couple of months.  And, despite knowing that hte base methodology is sound, it is still really gratifying when it WORKS - and when it works fast.

Wave chose to use external resource for appointment setting and after three weeks have two live opportunities and eight future opportunities logged for the next 6-8 months. 

GSC are doing it all internally and in the month of July have WON four new pieces of business - three in one week.  What was particularly encouraging was that we worked hard at pricing the work accruately and sending the right team to pitch and for one client we sent a more junior team to reflect the value of the opportunity and they won it without senior help.  That bodes really well for creating a culture of new business through the whole organisation.

I am so proud of them.

Here’s the base methodology

1. Identify your target sectors and named organisations and research
2. Add to your database
3. Decide how you will go after them and set up the process
4. Have support documentation / literature / credentials / website / direct mail ready
5. Contact by mail / email / voice and record your conversation
6. Do what you promise to do (send stuff, email, call again)
7. Flag future contact dates and have a process to ensure this happens

It isn’t hard to understand.  But what Creative Agencies frequently find is that it is very hard to do consistently when client pressures rise.  What I do is to help set up the underlying process to ensure it happens regardless of other things….. Sometimes it works brilliantly and sometimes I am less successful.

If you want a "healthcheck" for your own processes - call.

Just writing up the report on Agencies and their use of Web 2.0 tools to run their businesses. 
Findings, broadly in line with my thesis, that as an industry we are behind the adoption curve.

We managed 15 telephone interviews and 68 people got online to do the SurveyMonkey. 
We got picked up by another blogger (a graduate working for a PR firm).
The event invitations are out and replies coming back.

About 20 new contacts made with new people we didn’t know previously. 
One new prospect meeting already in the diary and one new job won from someone who already knew me but picked up the phone as a result of being contacted for the survey.

Net outcomes so far.  Costs = 100%.  New business won = 25% of costs to date.
Not brilliant.  But not awful.

Having made my snide remarks about PRs trying to track blogs for their clients, I think it’s time to focus on the law as it applies to us writing online for a wide audience.

Thanks to Creative Match for setting up the interview with Amali de Silva, senior litigation solicitor at Wiggins and Tahir Basheer, Partner at Media specialist law firm Sheridans.

Blogging offers us all an opportunity to have our say – but how far can we go without ending up in the soup?

When writing a blog, it is important to remember that the law does apply to the internet,