The “CMO Must See Call”: building better proxies & getting better work
Your agency is working on an important new campaign. The objective is clear and the business need is important. The client has completed and shared new research into the target audience’s behaviors, needs and wants. The client team prepared and delivered a strong briefing session. The agency has developed an insightful creative brief. The agency […]
The CMO To-Do List BEFORE 2022 Agency Reviews
Are you thinking there is an agency review up ahead for your company in 2022? The average tenure of agency relationships these days is roughly three years. For marketers with multiple agencies, that means that at almost any time there is an agency review being considered, is underway or has recently wrapped up. The need […]
A recipe for better marketer and agency alignment and results: The Top to Top Call
Marketers face tougher jobs in 2022 than ever before. And they need to get every ounce of productivity and effectiveness from their agency investments. The impact on agencies is significant. In the past year there has been record CMO movement and CMO tenure has declined to its lowest levels in years. Agencies face a tougher […]
Thanksgiving thoughts for marketers and agencies
Thanksgiving in the US is just around the corner and it is a perfect time to be grateful. And marketers and agencies have so much to be thankful for! We are weathering the extended pandemic. The economy is essentially at full employment, and while that makes hiring difficult and inflation is on the rise, it […]
How Clients and Agencies can Win the “Virtual” Chemistry Check
As Mercer Island Group’s Robin Boehler likes to say, the pitch process is like dating. There are good dates, and bad dates. The virtual chemistry check has become a regular part of the dating process, and it will be costly for those that ignore this reality. Starting with the obvious: chemistry is important in a […]
What CMOs and agencies can learn from the iPod launch 20-years ago
The iPod recently turned 20! A little over twenty years ago Apple launched the iPod and the world of consumer electronics would never be the same. The original iPod launched after less than a year of development in 2001. There were competitive products at the time. These were early MP3 players that were hard to […]
Three ways CMOs can make their firms more appealing to agencies
Today’s CMO has one of the most difficult jobs in history and needs the best agency support possible. The CMO job is nearly impossible to manage in a 24-hour day. The rest of the CSuite and Wall Street have far greater expectations of marketers than ever before. CMOs are expected to know more, innovate faster […]
5 things CMOs & Agency Leaders can learn from Carlos Santana
Carlos Santana’s success is well known and well documented. Santana rose to fame in the late 1960s, was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998 and is still active today, over fifty years after his journey began. Just a sampling of the awards he has received includes multiple Grammy Awards, a […]
Four tips on building more effective client-agency relationships
The advertising business is a people business. Partnership and respect is the crux of this incredibly important, sometime volatile and often emotionally charged relationship. Smart clients and agencies keep communication lines open and clear while working consistently to keep the relationship on track. Strong partnerships between clients and their agencies produce the best work and […]
How to Fix Marketing Leader Tenure: Develop Effective Proxies
When SpencerStuart released their annual CMO Tenure Study earlier this year, we saw a continued decline in average CMO tenure. Average tenure declined to its lowest point since 2009, and median tenure fell to 25.5 months, the lowest on record. Source: Mediapost, 2021 And it’s not just CMO tenure that has been challenged. Major agencies […]