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The other day, I was asked to speak at Robert Lauterborn’s class at UNC-Chapel Hill. He teaches a really interesting class on how to be a good client. Last year after I spoke to the same class, I wrote ten ways to be a good advertising client on my other blog, Life Is Marketing.

This year, Bob passed out an article by Lee Anne Morgan where she talks about the relationship between clients and agencies. She makes some excellent comments, including:

Many advertisers no longer perceive their agencies as partners but as vendors. There are differences though between being a partner and being a vendor. And these differences affect motivation, inspiration, dedication, truth, skin-on-the table…and an environment where creativity is easily birthed.

Lee Anne understands that agency-client relationships are not all about analytics. Check out this comment:

Every time an agency is fired, every time an advertiser feels it is not receiving value for their investment, and every time an advertiser and agency split asunder before taking all the steps they can towards partnership retention, then some ‘thing’ more intangible than metrics and profits, yet equally yoked, is at stake: that fragile space in which human values and creativity are cradled.

Well said, Lee Anne. Her whole article is worth reading. I hope you’ll spend the time to do so.

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