Great briefs, brand strategies and architecture will get you a long way. There are tons of workshops, seminars and online lectures on the stuff. Key throughout any process is some sort of a click with your agency. This goes for the creatives but foremost maybe… your account person. Maybe not maybe. Definitely your account person.

It works both ways though. It takes work. Time and effort. It means you brief in person, you phone people or videocall them. You don’t just email them and consider them a mailbox filled with solutions to your needs. Email is the death of any relationship. Engage with your agency partners and you’ll see what works and what not.

Sometimes it doesn’t work. Doesn’t gel. You live on two different planets or even in parallel dimensions. Maybe their vantage point is different than yours.

I once had a world class agency suggest we take famous people’s images and twitter branded content around it. I tried to explain that would be a lawsuit waiting to happen. No, it’s a brand new world; new media and internet meant new rules. I implored them to rethink. They didn’t. I then asked them to put in writing that they would be liable for any legal implications I saw looming. That’s where they all of a sudden weren’t that sure. Obviously, they weren’t willing to back up their claims in such a manner. In the end, my legal counsel explained to them new media and the internet didn’t work like they thought, that lawsuits would be coming at us like flies. We seemed just not to connect. Didn’t click. We ended up parting ways. Such a shame.

You don’t need to become friends with everyone, but you do need to be able to level. That the agency gets you’re one way or another trying to market some product or service. That you get that the agency tries to infuse that offering with creativity.

I personally have worked with some agency people for almost 20 years now. I keep returning to them. Why? Cause I feel that they have my best interest in mind. Does this mean they work for charity? No, I do hope not. What I do know is that when I brief them on a project, that they will deliver. They get my briefs. I get their way of working. We have that click.