Creative control – let it go

The most successful brands trust their agency partners (including advertising, PR, media buying and digital) to make creative decisions, without too much client interference, and simply get on with the job they are paid to do according to a recent PR Week article.

When clients cede creative control it enables agencies to launch campaigns in a matter of days, rather than months. Speed and agility are, of course vital, components of any creative strategy in this digital age, where competitors you’ve never heard of can completely disrupt your business and potentially destroy your future.

Many PR pros reading this will fully endorse this argument. How many campaigns have fallen flat because they have failed to secure client approval before an opportunity misses an important deadline (or best before date)? Then there are all the watered down, mixed messages and “we’ve always done it this way” arguments that strain client/agency relationships.

Trust is of course a key issue.

When a client is paying top dollar for a professional service, they should be in the position to trust the agency to make the right decisions (based on a proper brief) on their behalf.

Tim Ellis, EVP and CMO at computer games company Activision, has a lot of faith in his agency partners, telling journalists: “We can’t control everything. You have to allow your partners to express your brand.”

Is Good Enough is Good Enough?

There are of course was to ensure agencies continue to deliver value to “hands off” clients.

Quick, insightful decisions are now more likely to be made on the back of solid data than gut instinct and the ever present danger of a contract between a client and an agency being cancelled for poor performance should also ensure some degree of quality.

Some more “traditional” clients may be reticent to let go of creative control and more “old school” PR Pros might be concerned that agility will lead to poor quality campaigns and engagements.

This is something that Aaron Kwittken, global chairman and CEO at the communications agency Kwittken disagrees with, stating: “Clients need cheeseburgers, not filet mignon.”