Problem Solvers: Agencies Share Client Problems and Solutions

Brand clients hand off all kinds of problems and challenges to promotion agencies. And with the economy still wobbly, these challenges are often more urgent or more wide-ranging than they had been in the past, placing a greater burden on agencies. Here, three executives from 2010 Promo 100 agencies each outline a top client concern and offer a solution.

KAREN KOSLOW, executive vice president, Source Marketing (ranked No. 46 on the 2010 Promo 100 with an estimated $16.9 million in U.S. net revenue).

The problem Clients need to structure internally to support integrated marketing initiatives. That entails determining the right staffing model and the staff skill sets necessary to effectively strategize, develop, execute, and measure integrated marketing programming that crosses media (offline/online) and multiple marketing disciplines.

The Solution Put all the marketing communication roles—advertising, digital/social media, promotions—under one department, and then staff that department with people who have some level of experience within those marketing disciplines. That group then needs to identify the correct selection of agency partners to work with to deliver on the development and execution of campaigns. Finally, create an integrated marketing planning process to facilitate communication among the brand owners, the internal marketing communications department and the external agency partners.

“Often these folks report to different departments—PR is responsible for social media and PR, the promotion department is responsible for customer marketing and online and offline promotion, and the brand person leads advertising,” Koslow said.

“They all don’t work from one core idea-driven campaign and execute that across all these disciplines. It’s a lot of work to manage when it’s dispersed like that, and that’s why restructuring to have all these groups together is more efficient.”

JEFF SHIFRIN, president, Octagon (ranked No. 22 on the 2010 Promo 100 with an estimated $64.1 million in 2009 U.S. net revenue)

The problem Clients have been looking for ways to measure sports sponsorship programs. For years the sports industry has proclaimed such programs successful without any real proof.

The solution A sports and experiential marketing agency, Octagon six years ago launched Passion Drivers, research that quantifies the passion people have for sports and how they consume sports. In 2007, the agency debuted Passion Drivers 2.0, [http://www.passiondrivers.com] which allows clients to overlay their consumer segmentation to further enrich the existing research. This year Octagon has teamed with Simmons to add consumption data—where these fans shop, what they buy, how often they shop and other consumption habits—to maximize activation points that will resonate with this consumer. Passion Drivers 2.0 now includes 60,000 avid sports fans covering 30 sports in 11 countries on six continents.

“This has been one of the biggest challenges our clients encounter,” Shifrin said. “Clients who are involved in sports and entertainment programming want to get away from property selection via the gut check. This is a way to better quantify what properties clients should be partnering with so that they achieve a better return on objectives.”

SCOTT NEUMANN, senior vie president, executive creative director, Wunderman3 (Wunderman ranked No. 2 on the 2010 Promo 100 with an estimated $440 million in 2009 U.S. net revenue).

The Problem Clients ask more frequently to include social media, deeper consumer insights and digital extensions to their brand plans and executions.

The Solution We partner with fellow network agencies like DesignKitchen, DataCore, (part of the KBM Group), and iconmobile to add their expertise to our own and bring it to bear on our client’s brands. Each is housing a person from its agency in our office. This gives us a turnkey resource that allows us to not only think of social applications on behalf of our clients, but the onsite expertise to answer questions, bulletproof ideas, and provide valuable insight on who's doing what in that arena. This keeps us up to date on the latest technologies being used to connect consumers to brands in the social space.

“The result of having social experts in house is the opportunity to speak confidently, quickly and efficiently about a very fast moving channel,” Neumann said. “An added benefit to having more insight is the enhancement to our creative work.”

CATHY LANG, COO of Aspen Marketing Services, which ranked No. 4 on the 2010 Promo 100, with 2009 U.S. net revenue of $274 million.

The Problem How to maximize social media marketing.

The Solution Grab rich data from social media sites to predict behavior. Focus on places, such as Facebook pages, where you can watch how consumers interact with the content and what information prompts them to post. Then use the data to determine relevant topics and promotions going forward.
 

“We have to wedge our way in to grab that data and find out who those customers are,” Lang said.