The Greedy Marketer

The genie's out of the bottle, and your three wishes are due!

If there's one thing I've learned from eleven years on the agency side and ten on the client side, it's this.

You aren't a Marketer unless you've said: “I just want three things from my agencies: Great work... Faster... And cheaper.”

Now, it's pretty much an unwritten law on the agency side that, when faced with this demand, a good Account Director and Creative Director will look at each other, then back across the table at their client, and respond:

We'll give you two out of three.

This is usually accompanied by side-eye glances of either condescension or sheer panic between the two, depending upon the current state of the client-agency relationship.

And sure, it makes sense.

Need to do something great, quick? Pay us the premium to staff the team with additional resources or block out a director's time.

Want something fast and cheap? Settle for good enough, in that case.

Want to win a Cannes Lion, but don't have much money? Cool, we'll tackle that in our breaks from real work that drives business results and earns the agency money.

That summed up my approach during my agency-side time.

But here on the client side at Google, there's a healthy disregard for the impossible.

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Most Googlers seek to produce great outcomes while working at breakneck speed.

In fact, speed and responsiveness were amongst the first lessons drummed into me in my first year at Google. Here’s what my first CMO at Google said to me in an early 1:1:

Time is the only resource you can't get back. So find money and find people to throw at the problem…but keep moving fast.

A couple of years ago, as I reviewed our agency engagement approach in the light of team feedback and evolving business needs, I asked myself, "What would it take to do all three?"

Most marketers I've spoken with, even those like us with excellent agency partners, face similar challenges in a marketing environment that's rapidly changing. Here’s what they had to say, co-written with Gemini and sung to the tune of the Hogwarts School Song.

Clients crave the wild, the bold, the new,
From minds that sparkle, visions bright and true.
They yearn for numbers neat, for budgets tight,
For diverse teams that champion what is right.

They fume at filters, at ideas tamed,
At safe bets played, while rounds of review go unblamed.
They're tired of treadmills, of endless toiling,
Of agency red tape, of endless recoiling.

And always, the question, a nagging refrain,
"Are we getting our money's worth? Is it all in vain?"
This is the client's lament, a tale old as time,
The dance of agency and brand, a complex paradigm.

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On paper, these seem like separate issues with separate solutions.

But are they really?

Much like Archimedes, I get most of my brainwaves while bathing. And one such epiphany struck me when I was all lathered up and singing in the shower.

Great work, great execution and great value aren't separate issues.
They're inextricably interconnected.

Let me explain by picking some of these issues and root causes as examples.

🔥 Our agencies need to present more radical work.
😣 Root cause: they still bring the same traditional-minded staff to work on a brief. 🤔 Ergo, agency teams need more diversity, in terms of people and skills.
😮 So, better work is an outcome of staffing…which can be addressed at a contract level.
🤑 Which means we can also get more business value for the resources we pay for!
🧠 Brainwave: Creative output and value for spend are connected.

Let’s try another one, shall we?

💸 We’re paying our agencies too much.
⌛ Surface cause: They’re charging us a lot of hours.
😩 The data shows they’re actually spending way more hours than they should.
🤦 Root cause: Because they’re doing too many rounds of revision because they’re getting feedback from too many people.
😢 And the work just feels more watered-down with every revision.
😮 So, we can save money by streamlining our process and reducing the time our agencies need.
🤯 And that can help us get to better work too!
🧠 Brainwave: Spend and creative output are affected by execution.

Last one, and then I’ll stop, I promise.

📅 Our agencies need more operational rigour to deliver on time and on budget.
🔧 Root cause: Agency layers and processes, especially senior management review, are slowing us down…
😭 …and burning us out.
😮 So, by reducing layers and senior management time at the agency, we could operate faster…which can be addressed at a contract level.
❤️ And save some money along the way by buying less senior management time!
🧠 Brainwave: Execution and spend are connected.

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Wherever you begin - Great Work, Faster or Cheaper - you can find a solution by looking into one or both of the other spaces.

It’s not a pipe dream.

But it can only become a reality when you look beyond the problem you think you see, to see the whole problem.

And that, my friends, is an insight.

Samit