I founded an agency called Agency Republic in 2001 for Omnicom during digital boom times when clients were spending a lot on digital.  we were smarter than the average – we had both really good digital and really good creative strategists so we could talk business.
I left in 2007 with Andy Sandoz and Paddy Griffin to set up Work Club.  The drivers were the lure of self employment and “doing it for myself” – I asked myself, if not now then when?

What were the key decisions when founding the agency?

Having some money to back yourself rather than borrowing and having the right business partners is cruically important.  Also a good idea of what is going to be different from other agencies.

Quickly after setting up Ben and Lisa joined us from Mother and this developed into our proposition as a creative agency with a digital spine.

The proposition is for a new kind of client – many brands recognise that they need to make a lot more of digital as a way of thinking as well as a channel.  Few clients know who to get the advice from to do this.  If they get it from an ad agency it is not very insightful.  If they go to an old style digital agency then they get digital technicians who aren’t always able to offer the same level of business, brand, strategy and creative advice that you get in a really good ad agency.  We tried to put it all together for a kind of client for whom digital is increasingly the number 1 channel and the way they have to think about their brand in future.

What does this mean in practice for a client?

We are lead agency for 80% of our clients.  Pizza Express hired us to do a website for them, we dug into their brand and helped them to define a proposition which was more fitting with the digital age “feeding great conversations since 1965″. People go there because they like the food but want to catch up with their friends and family therefore the reason for going is great conversation in the  context of getting the delivery right.

A strategy based on consumer dialogue is fitting with the digital age of sociability powered by digital.  We took this idea and exploded it into all channels, events, advertising, POS, direct, promotions and we are now lead agency for them.  It makes more sense for them to have a lead agency whose heartland is in digital than a series of agencies.
It also requires a client mentality to take the leap to choose a digitally-centric agency as the lead for the brand.  It is a bit bold and unusual.  To do great work, clients we want to attract are someone maverick and prepared to take risks.  We will probably never be BT’s lead agency as they are not likely to put digital first.

We recently started to work for Alfa Romeo – they don’t have an advertising agency because they realise 95% of all new car purchases are researched online and so they need to get digital right first.  They may need to advertise on top of that but feel better to have a digital agency defining the brand.

So how are you getting the talent into Work Club?

We are trying to get all the skills required in-house.  We are now working across nearly every channel, print, TV, outdoor.

A crucial difference about how we set up the agency is that we have no in house production.  Most digital agencies have 20 – 30% of people having ideas at the front end and the rest in the back room coding micro-sites all day.  We found this limiting – on an operational level you are limited by the people you have got and you also have a skills restrictions e.g. mobile apps, hardcore website, brilliant media sites.  Clients recognise that and it limits you in skill sand capacity terms.  Clients also realise that paying London agency rates for asset production when it can be offshored for a tenth of the price is not necessary.
Strategically agencies tend to recommend what they can make money out of best – and most agencies push banners and a microsite.  We decided to take the strategic high ground as brand guardians, you can’t have a vested interst in producing stuff in a particular channel.
We work with a broad roster of production companies, film, event, mobile – probably 30 different suppliers and partners.  It’s an old model but within digital it’s a new model. We see digital agencies as people who think and have ideas.

What was the most recent client you won and why?

Alpha Romeo we did a pitch through the AAR – it was a digital pitch.  They loved our ideas the most – our creative concepts were great, our understanding of the brand was good and the blend of people was the same standard of creative and strategic  in a great ad and digital agency.  An holistic blend of skills.

Most of the work we have won has been through contacts and recommendation.  Our proposition has started to shift -  up to to now it has been hard to sell through intermediaries.  They categorise the pitch as being ‘digital’ and we don’t fit.

The work we get is referrals.  We started working with Plum Baby two years ago and we now do everything for them.  Plum Baby met Pizza Express to get them to list the Plum Baby food and they mentioned us.  Will Harris at Nokia I worked with years ago at O2 and I have worked with him before.  He recommended us to Sony BMG and Oakley.  Once you really deliver for a client and they know they can trust you the relationship is at that level.

It’s gold dust – when it happens it’s brilliant.
It doesn’t happen very often.  We won 118 118 through Oystercatcher.  Kraft came through ISBA and we are now on the European roster and across a range of categories.

One of the reasons we have done well is we have had strategists running accounts so far.  We are starting to bring people in now in order to be able to scale on large pieces of business – raising the quality of conversations when representing the belief of digital at the heart of brand communications, you can be more persuasive and get invited up into senior meetings.

How can ‘production’ agencies get onto your roster?

Talk to Josh Tenser our Production manager – his job is to make sure we are working with the best production partners in whatever field.  The whole white label thing is complete nonsense because the best people won’t want to work with you and we need the best executional partners in the world.  We think this is the benefit of our collaboration model when talking to clients.

I think if we want to work with the best – we have to showcase their expertise and credit them if they want to work with us.  We are experts in strategy and ideas and they are production experts.

Agencies hiding their production partners are usually also hiding their production margins.  We are 100% transparent.

What other changes can you forsee in the marketing services industry?

I don’t think procurement people still have a clue about digital.  Going in and trying  to persuade them to pick us for roster reviews and RFIs – the questions are being asked are wrong on the whole.  “How much will you charge us for a banner?”, rather than what is the role of digital in our business.  This was still the case from 10 years ago. That is holding back the quality of agencies working for clients.  They are hunting for cheap banner shops rather than how digital can make your business more profitable.
Most clients are savvy as to whether their ad agency is walking the walk as well as talking the talk.  Some agencies have hired quality people and can think differently from a broadcast advertising model – but the people running , managing and owning them are all ad people and that makes it hard to change.  If you are a smart strategist and 28 year old it is hard to change what’s above me.

Who are the emerging new agencies who get it?

Wieden and Kennedy, Fallon, Albion.

To get from the interesting promising hot young agency into the seriously good agency bracket you need to have some awesome badged creative work that people really get “the agency that did X”.  The third year is make or break, culture solidifies, the big client accounts are developed into a platform from which good work can come.  You have to get it right – and that propels you on.  We have to get some landmark creative work in the next 6 months and we have some good opportunities.

Also effectiveness measurement.  Most clients have been happy with the model of measurement through industry-understood benchmarks e.g. Millward Brown qual and quant.  But in digital where the volumes aren’t as big yet and there’s a surfeit of data there is not yet a commonly understood approach to measurement.
e.g. Kraft are very excited about moving digital to the heart but at brand planning and working out what they should be measuring in a impact on brand health and sales there isn’t a templated one way to do it.  We have hired a Director of Effectiveness andwe are trying to work with every client with time and money in the budget to bespoke a measurement approach for every bit of work we do.  This means agreeing what success looks like up front, dynamically generated data into dynamically generated dashboards that clients can log into at any time to check on.

Related posts:

1. Calling digital agencies who want more work
2. Shout! With Sam Brownfield, MD of Digital Agency Search
3. Tuttle Club reflects on its first year
4. Martin Sorrell blogs from Davos
5. Martin Sorrell’s blog isn’t up to date

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