Situation:
A fast growing health care service provider was expanding its locations and needed to increase their marketing and advertising due to competition. The company had never used a full-service advertising agency in the past. But several agencies had been in contact with them about handling their business. The company contacted us to help them through the process of selecting an agency.
Our Approach:
Since several agencies had already submitted credentials and ideas, we immediately reviewed the submissions and did some background work on our own to determine if the “short list” was already acceptable. Our philosophy is that if some of the work has already been done, then there’s no reason to start the search over just to increase our own fee.
We also examined the company’s business and their marketing needs. We wanted to make sure that both their short-term and long-term marketing needs would be met.
Our Findings:
We found that a couple of the agencies that had already submitted pitches for the business were well-suited to become the company’s first agency. But one agency already stood out as having the pedigree for both the short-term and long-term needs. So we immediately began working on an agency agreement contract with that agency.
Initially, the advertising agency simply wanted the client to sign the agency’s standard agreement. But we found that the standard agreement was not entirely in the best interests of the client. It was very one-sided and did not promote a “partnership arrangement” between the client and the agency.
Results:
We co-authored an advertising agency agreement that resulted in both the client and the agency being satisfied. That was over ten years ago and when we last checked, the client and the agency were still in “partnership” with each other.