Time For Agency Leaders To Double Down On Their How

(This article was originally posted on Forbes: )

More than a decade ago, Simon Sinek wielded his Sharpie, drew concentric circles, and revealed what would become one of the most talked-about business frameworks for years to come. With his TED talk, Sinek persuaded us to "Start With Why," positioning a seemingly existential question as the key to unlocking future potential.

Undoubtedly, "Start With Why" is sage advice. But now, more than ever, businesses will survive or thrive based on an essential corollary for this next decade. Yes, start with "why" and then double down on actioning "how."

If "why" is talking the talk, "how" is walking the walk. As Adland reimagines a future amidst the madness of COVID-19, demonstrating in tangible, operational terms how to partner with a marketer and deliver a distinct experience might prove to be the special elixir we seek in uncertain times.

I recently connected with four agency leaders to learn how they are walking their walk with today’s top brands.

Embracing the impact of outcomes.

Bullish, a New York-based strategy and creative agency, has taken that seemingly mythical idea and made it into an everyday reality. Trademarked as "America’s most dangerous agency," Bullish literally puts its money where its mouth is by structuring financial arrangements that risk dollars in exchange for potential monetary upside if their ideas deliver results.

Their cofounder, Mike Duda, explains:

We hated that marketers and Wall Street looked at agencies as line item expenses. If we do our jobs well, we’re building businesses and increasing market share...It’s a product of agencies being traditionally paid for their time versus the impact of their outcomes.

Aiming to pivot the narrative, Bullish constructed a model anchored around "Fees for Impact" that share in their clients’ pain and benefit from their successes.

Separate from the pay-for-performance model is Bullish’s even more unusual investment arm. The fund represents investments from several family offices interested in participating with early stage start-ups.

While this group operates independently from the agency, it is not unusual for Bullish to take on CMO-like functions for these start-ups and provide guidance on marketing plans that will make or break a brand’s trajectory and long-term valuation.

Fusing organizational structures.

While many were wrestling with questions around marketers' increasing affinity for in-house agency services, Oliver had already amassed a global business model operating customized agencies within the walls of its marketing clients.

It merges the efficiency of on-site in-house agencies with turn-key agency operations and talent. The model has attracted not only the partnership of top brands like Unilever, but also an acquisition by You & Mr Jones in 2019.

Oliver North American CEO Peter Kuhn shares his perspective on how shifts in the industry necessitated a change in the fundamentals of client partnership:

Years ago, marketers were knowledge workers like doctors. Depth and years of experience translated to volume of expertise. Then the grenade dropped.

That grenade was digital technology and data. It accelerated the pace of change and cast relevant expert experience as an asset that would almost certainly diminish with time:

Now we’re in it together. Collaboration is more essential than ever.

And with Oliver’s operational approach that fastens their agency services onto a marketer’s organizational design, they essentially serve as an extension of the client:

Some days we are the order takers, some days we are the originators. It’s partnership for this modern era.

There are those elusive ideas that float around Adland with surprising frequency. Agencies talk about them, sometimes flirt with them – but rarely are they implemented in wide-scale, sustainable ways. Pay-for-performance is a usual suspect on that list.

Scaling access to the industry's top senior-level thinking.

BeenThereDoneThat (BTDT) has birthed an agency platform by matching marketers’ interest in speed and scale with top agency creatives’ desires to fully immerse in their craft. With over 200 former creative and strategy executives in their community, BTDT offers brands the opportunity to engage in one week sprints that deliver a breadth of ideas from across a pool of top creatives.

Cofounder Ed Rogers explains:

We provide creative acupuncture: senior-level injections of creative thinking that are fast, deep, and effective in unlocking potential.

While top creative talent in traditional agencies increasingly find themselves entrenched in management responsibilities versus ideation, Rodgers shares that:

Clients of BTDT have access to the direct thinking of the senior-level talent they crave, at a greater scale.

Most of the community engages via 1099’s and currently works outside a traditional agency. BTDT’s full-time staff of twenty anchor the operation from New York and London and serve as the client’s main point of contact. Focusing solely on strategy and creative, BTDT’s approach encourages clients to explore a range of ideas and actively participate in designing how they are implemented out in the wild.

Leaning into the abstract and asymmetric.

Sterling-Rice Group (SRG) was founded over 35 years ago, carving out an expertise in innovation long before it was positioning de jour in Adland. While the Boulder-based agency works across several consumer categories, their deep expertise in the culinary category has paved the roadmap for their end-to-end product design approach.

As CEO and President Cindy Judge shares:

We never assume we’re managing a linear process. Innovation is asymmetric.

SRG utilizes an agile development approach they’ve honed called "Abstract Inventions" and couples it with a set of research capabilities that condenses months of product exploratory into days. Judge explains that the infusion of culinary experts into the process provides an essential "ingredient" in the innovation process.

She adds:

SRG’s Culinary Council actively engages over 150 chefs, food scientists, and industry professionals in the agency’s culinary accounts, providing clients direct access to experts that can influence everything from product design to marketing.

SRG’s office also houses a commercial kitchen that provides a new level of fluidity between prototyping and focus group testing.

The range of these agency approaches showcase that now, more than ever, it is essential to architect a future that focuses on our "how" in an evolving world.