Small Agencies Can Produce Great Work

By Ron Owens

Great work. Everybody talks about it, but unless you work in the right kind of advertising agency, it’s hard to do much of it. That sounds pretty bold on my part, but it’s true. And it’s why the performance of creative people almost always goes up and down when they move to a new agency.

If you’re a manager in a small agency, you’re in a unique position to help your agency produce quality work. The critical thing to remember is that the working environment you create either helps or hinders creative people.

Basically, three factors are important to creating an atmosphere that encourages great work: Creative leadership; agency confidence; atmosphere / culture of the agency. Creative leadership is the starting point for all great work. What kind of leadership inspires great work? That’s simple. There’s never been a brilliant creative agency that hasn’t been led by managers who were virtually interested in the creative product. The best agencies, in fact, are led by managers who actually take part in the creative process. 

The explanation for this is not complicated. An agency led by businessmen and businesswomen with purely business interests will demonstrate its ability only in growth and profits. There are a lot of them and almost all big agencies fall into this category. As an account or business person, it is your responsibility to produce a solid creative strategy - one that is client-approved. Creative managers, on the other hand, demonstrate their ability in the quality of work their agency produces.

But the concept of creative leadership is broader than this. It goes beyond the characterization of management. It goes to the heart of its character. For the small agency, it’s suicide to accept clients who do not want great work. It’s tempting, but it’s dangerous. Because, in the end, clients make the agency. 

Great clients make great agencies. Less-than-great clients make less of your agency. Because it doesn’t matter how good your work is, if your client doesn’t buy it, it doesn’t get done. So, pick your clients carefully. If they expect you to create great work, you can; and more clients will be attracted to your agency. 

Another challenge of agency leadership is the ability to sell great work. The best advertising is often daring. For the small agency to gain a reputation for doing great work, it must do daring advertising. But this kind of advertising is often hard to sell. Even to good clients. And it often becomes a test of how hard an agency is willing to work to sell a good idea. But even though it’s hard, it’s worth it. 

Brilliant advertising based upon sound strategy and positioning, then skillfully executed, is capable of creating breakthrough results. And this makes heroes at the agency and at the client. It may not always feel like it, but it’s a lot easier to do breakthrough work at a small agency than at big ones. Big agencies have too much at stake. They have to play it safe. So do big clients. 

Agency confidence generates the energy that creative work requires. Quality advertising does something besides build reputations and sales. It builds confidence. Confidence is like a locomotive. When it comes roaring through the creative department, it pulls great ideas out of everybody. 

For people who’ve never worked in the creative end of an agency, it may come as a revelation that it takes 30 bad ideas to produce a good one. And sometimes 10 good ideas to produce a great one. Success creates the confidence creative people need to keep on working when they have a “good” solution but not a brilliant one. Or making the most of every assignment. Great work takes a lot of time. Your clients should get it and you should give it willingly. You’ll have a great advantage over big agencies. They can’t compete like this. The atmosphere of the agency determines whether or not good work can be done consistently. 

Creative brilliance occurs only in an environment where it is expected. The creation of good work is not a magical phenomenon. It is an orderly process that must be supported by everybody at the agency. 

Account people must have courage and confidence in their account team, so they can recognize a great idea and sell it. Media people have to have the insight to know where and when a message will be most powerful and most believed. Cost efficiency & effectiveness are also major considerations. Production and support services have to believe that their job is vital to the production of high quality work. With all these people working to support the creative product, what’s the creative department’s responsibility to the rest of the agency? It’s immeasurable. They have to create great advertising. 

In our metro area, we are extremely fortunate that we have small agencies that produce great advertising – advertising that gets results. Advertisers in this area would be remiss, in fact, guilty of a disservice to themselves, if they do not favorably consider, awarding their business to a local agency before taking their business to an out of town agency. 

Ron Owens is a Past President of the DC Ad Club; former Governor of the 4A’s Mid-Atlantic Region; Vice Chair, American Advertising Federation(AAF); VP, Bozell Worldwide; co-founder & principal, LMO Advertising; Dir of Advertising, Pitney Bowes;  member, Association of National Advertisers(ANA); Acct Supervisor, DDB Needham and President of Ron Owens & Associates, a consultancy specializing in non-profits, business development, diversity & inclusion. Ron’s e-mail address is RonOwens221@yahoo.com.