Can I Have Your Attention Please?

Although you may never say this it is obviously expected when you, a business owner/CEO, hires a marketing/branding professional. Of course the advertising firm has more than one client, but you should still expect them to make sure the right people spend enough attention developing your ads/strategies/campaigns.

Any elephant in its niche (think AT&T, Compaq, Quiznos, etc) will also hire the Rolls Royce of marketing agencies. In other words, the agency with 500 employees where representatives, not teams, from each company meet and discuss the project at hand.

What is the problem? You may, or may not, ask. The problem is that, as a business, you have no control or grip over the attention your project is getting, or who is working on it. You will not even know if a monkey is taking care of the creative design. Although most agencies employ good writers, it is not uncommon for a project to be edited by non-editors or pass by an account manager who “revamps” the logo design.

The point I am trying to make is simple:

When marketing and branding, you have to make sure you know what is going on. This is where the small business owner has an advantage over the large conglomerate. Small businesses cannot afford Rolls Royce, whether real or in the marketing world. This automatically forces you to consider hiring individual professionals or small agencies that charge close to the industry minimums.

Like Kevin Levi commented in his article on awe publicity, large companies may have hired the “best” marketing firm, but not the one that has given the project the most amount of thought. Just because something cost a lot of money to produce, does not mean it is any good. Yes, we need to keep those people who do amazing GC work employed, but I prefer to keep them working more in movies than in advertising. I also agree consumers have become more sophisticated, and perhaps do need to be “awed” in order for them to remember the ad. But like Kevin said, it does not mean they will remember the product, or even know why they should buy brand X instead of brand Y.

When you go out to get your marketing and advertising taken care of, don’t be sad when you cannot afford to hire the big guns. Make sure you hire someone who knows what he/she is doing, charges according to industry standards and can guarantee you the writer, designer or creative director is not a monkey.

While I am advocating hiring freelancers and small advertising agencies here, keep in mind that while “you get what you pay for” does not always hold at the high end of the price scale, it is more often true for the low end. Anyone charging less than market value is likely going to deliver the same.

Cheers!
Christine Buske

Copywriting & Advertising
www.ChristineBuske.com

Dean

Christine a great guide behind the thought process, as a freelance SEO myself i do indeed offer the Rools Royce service at a price that befits my experience and never take on more than i can handle ensuring that my clients get the best of what i can offer them.

However there are advantages to the larger corporation including combined years of experience coupled with the team effort, my advice would be to thoroughly research your prospective partner using a simple tool known as Google?!?

Believe it or not researching your partner this way can give a clear indicator to the reputation and/or success or failures of that partners online efforts.

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rahul chawda

hello christine

a good post on the quest to find out the right partners, in this case marketin and advertisin aspects of the business.

as small enterprises, we have observed how difficult it is to identify partners, that have the promise of long and mutually benifical association.

the key to such snergies is to pass a sense of ownership to your parnters and not look for 'stop gap jobs'.

synergies are a way forward for small.

Len Romano

I agree with your general message but I have an addition. I believe a small design studio can indeed offer a Rolls Royce treatment, more often than a big company can, and assure the client that their whole team is going to be involved with their project and the client is going to get the absolute best the small design studio can offer. That's the only way small design studios can compete with the big guns. My own design studio is a 4 person company and I spend months hiring the right person for the job. I have a long list of potential employees who would leave their jobs tomorrow to come and work here - because they know of our reputation for the highest standards and ethics. Almost all of my employees come from big ad agencies/design firms and every single one of them has had to re-learn how to take their time, stay emotionally connected to the task at hand and keep the client's (and end users) needs consistently in mind throughout the project. As a result every single one of my employees has won national design awards whilst working here. When a client hires my company, no matter how big or small the project, they get an initial meeting with the our two principals and they are guaranteed that our whole team will be collaborating on their project from start to finish. That is what I would consider the red-carpet, Rolls Royce treatment. My clients obviously agree as, this has been proven time after time, I have no trouble whatsover taking business from my bigger competition which is why I love them all from the bottom of my heart and would like to take this opportunity to thank them for being so big and so silly.