Chairing the session was Future Factory Managing Partner Gill Huber, she was joined by:
Dawn Spencer
Advisor and Executive Coach: formerly MD of Pilgrim Food Masters, MD & CMO of Kerry Group, Marketing Lead at Coca Cola
Benazir Barlet-Batada
Marketing Lead, Director of Brands, FMCG Expert: formerly Director of Global Brands, Treasury Wine Estates, Mondelez International
Lucas Bergmans
CMO, Consultant and Advisor: formerly Group Marketing Director of Cazoo, Head of Marketing Aviva Digital Garage, Head of Marketing at Money Supermarket
Katrina Lowes
Business Leader & CMO: Vice-Chair, Police Care UK and formerly COO Vodafone Centre for Health
The panellists kicked off the session by explaining the pressure on CMOs; as you climb the ladder your role inherently becomes more commercially driven, with a real need to focus on the commercial outcomes of marketing and to demonstrate its value to the brand business. The panel agreed that creativity is still hugely important and not to be ignored but it is critical it is tied into how this delivers commercially. Bergmans noted “that there has been a real shift in focus from purely business growth to ensuring profitability”.
The panel agreed that the pandemic changed the landscape significantly, with marketers often being required to steer the ship of the entire business which meant their responsibilities have broadened to encompass a growing remit of strategic roles.
They explored what’s important to them when choosing a partner and how agencies can provide true support to brands across multiple disciplines. Below are four key takeouts from the session.
Raising your profile as an agency is important
Putting yourself out there is important, according to our panel, who say they look at award wins and who’s featuring in the creative press, as well as looking up who’s done work that they love, that they see out in the wild.
Spencer commented, “I want to work with agencies that can be instrumental to our growth. I look for the agency thought leaders on LinkedIn and the opinion leaders speaking at events. This is what gives me an initial insight into an agency. How they show up, what they believe and how they add value to brands. This gets my attention!”
Bergmans also advised that “things which genuinely add value, like roundtable events organised by agencies where they can connect with peers, are greatly appreciated by senior marketers”.
Understand your brands customers
The panel placed emphasis on truly getting under the skin of customers; if you’re not on top of not only who the customer is, but how they interact with the brand on a granular level, you can’t expect to walk into a pitch and impress a brand, they live and breathe their customers day in day out.
Adding to this, Barlet-Batada advised that “we also want to work with agencies that are passionate about the brand itself and enthusiastic about the product or service we’re selling. That’s what I notice”.
Know your brief inside out. Take the time to research as thoroughly as possible prior to even getting in front of a prospective client. “That understanding is what separates good marketers from great marketers,” said Lowes.
Be a realistic, mature and savvy agency partner
The panellists noted several traits that either warm them to an agency partner, or raise a red flag:
The panel said agencies should:
Understand annual cycles, ebbs and flows – it’s not possible to produce a big above the line TV ad at all points of the year. Agency partners should be flexible and willing to work on a project basis to make it work. Spencer commented, “having the flexibility to collaborate with an agency on project work can help build trust within teams and with CMO’s, to establish whether the partnership will be successful before committing long-term”.
Make the effort to drive collaboration and come to the table with ideas.
Don’t be afraid to challenge what we are doing, suggest a new approach based on your deep understanding of the brand.
And shouldn’t:
Be competitive with other agencies on the roster whilst working on a brief together. You should all be part of the same team.
Be overfamiliar. This is a business relationship, getting to know each other is key but taking that outside of business into the personal without invitation will not help to build a relationship, but could destroy it.
Diversity is crucial – and there’s an opportunity to reframe it
Diversity is about so much more than hitting EDI targets and having a blend of people. Lowes emphasised that “it’s also about understanding the market in which you’re operating in, therefore, its vital agencies have that diversity of thinking to ensure your outputs are authentic”. Agencies that make good partners understand what multiple market activity looks like to ensure brands don’t miss the mark. One panellist suggested reframing diversity as ‘difference’. Though similar, the difference in semantics gets people to sit up and listen – diversity can feel buzzword-y, but everyone wants to be different.
The panel agreed that diversity within agencies is incredibly important but added that the industry still has a long way to go. Barlet-Batada commented, “Whilst we’re definitely seeing a movement to encourage more diversity within agencies at a junior level, more needs to be done to support diversity through to senior levels”.
To continue to bang the drum for diversity and difference is to create a rhetoric that will become a self-fulfilling prophecy – not just for one agency, brand or person, but for the entire industry.
Get in touch and grow your agency
Gill Huber, Managing Partner, Future Factory
