Dear Marketers, an analogy.

Some thoughts I have had on an analogy between restaurants and the creative business with important lessons for marketers or anyone who manages a brand. (Credit for the original analogy must go to our previous MD of Halo, Paul Binikos.)

For those unexposed to it, creative and design agencies are difficult to understand and assign value. For a good few years I have found it easier to use examples from restaurants to explain. Everybody eats and people understand restaurants a lot better. The taste of food is more universal than taste in design or creative. Or, in the case of brand managers, trying to preempt the markets' taste in design or a creative idea.

14, and counting, solid observations:

1. Most restaurants have a front of house which deals with customers (client service) and a kitchen which cooks the food (creatives).

2. The head chef is the creative director and they oversee the quality and ensure the kitchen produces something the customer will like.

3. They don’t always get it right.

4. Experimentation is essential to try new recipes and the head chef must believe in the ideas. Food is obviously faster and easier to test. But maybe, you don’t like an idea presented because it doesn’t suit your taste. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong or the market won't enjoy it.

5. There are fast food agencies that serve a huge market and then high-end, fine dining agencies that have a small, niche, but important, customer.

6. Fast food agencies are built on turnaround time and will charge R40 for a burger that’s unlikely to be made from real meat. A LOT of people are fine with that.

7. Fine dining agencies spend more time sourcing ingredients, finding new recipes and put more craft and care into their dishes. They also spend more on training and hiring top chefs. The dishes, naturally, cost more. A tasting menu could cost R1500 per person. The same price as 37 burgers.

8. A fine dining restaurant may also make a burger. The burger will cost R120. But it’s still a burger. You simply shouldn't compare the R40 burger against the R120 burger.

9. Some marketers need fast food, some want fine dining.

10. But marketers try treat all burgers, creativity and design the same way and often end up buying on price (looking at you procurement). You wouldn't go to a fine dining restaurant and demand they make you a burger for R40 or threaten you can make your own burger in-house.

11. Lastly, and most importantly. You simply wouldn’t walk into a restaurant, ask to taste the food and only pay for it if you liked it. You chose that restaurant for a reason. So stop asking designers, creatives and agencies to pitch for free.

12. The years that went into making that head chef who they are, are the same years that made that designer or agency team who they are. That’s what you’re buying. Talent, care, experience. And it's worth paying for.

13. Decide what type of restaurant/agency you want up front (you may eat at several) and then choose which to use at the right time.

14. If you end up eating at a fine-dining restaurant, trust the chef and try understand why certain ingredients were used. If you are not prepared to try new things or pay for quality, experience and creativity, your brand will end up like a bland, fast food burger.