Insights / Client relationships

Balancing existing vs new clients

I hate to use a typical war analogy, but within any agency there's two teams in the building. There's one that's gaining new ground and getting new clients, which is absolutely critical, and then there's an existing team that's defending the current ground. I think it's about balancing your resources, to be honest between not only the clients that are going to be future clients that we're going to serve, but with existing, that we're actually producing the best creative possible.

And it's making sure that different teams are given opportunities to pitch as well, and that you exploit all the different talents that you have within the agency. I think it's definitely based on what the agency strategy is overall in terms of pitches. If they want to reshape who they are, and the type of work that they do, they might have an idea of a certain client mix that they think is optimal to not only keep their people happy, but to create the agency that they ultimately want to create.

Not only will agencies have to be judicious in terms of what types of opportunities they go after, but I think clients have to be smarter about leveraging all the different providers that are out there, and understanding that someone is going to have to put all those puzzle pieces together. And sometimes agencies, or consultancies for that matter, play that role in bringing all those assets and people together, but an internal client team could do that as well. It's just about understanding the skills that you don't have internally, and what's really needed outside of the organisation to push that client team forward. Then I'd say on the agency side, it's about finding the right clients were your agency has a unique skill set that can solve certain creative problems, for a specific group of clients.

Balancing existing vs new clients

Previously: Publicis Sapient

Clients: VolkswagenMicrosoft