Client and Agency Relationships:
How to Align Mars with Venus

If clients and agencies are partners, why is it so hard for them to sync up to produce compelling, creative and successful work? Sometimes it may seem that each thinks the other is speaking a foreign language, or even worse, interacting with a Martian! 

Client-agency relationships are more complex than we think.  In order for them to work well, they require committed collaboration. Marketers and their agency partners need to be mindful that they are co-producers, where everyone must pro-actively nurture and evaluate the level of communication, trust, confidence, understanding, and rewards that every member of the partnership should enjoy.  Disconnects can strain the relationship resulting in costly and time consuming revisions, reviews or even worse, the severing of the partnership.  

The ANA School of Marketing (SoM) has worked with many marketers to deliver workshops on how to improve their client agency relationships.  Now, the ANA SoM will be sharing the insight gained from these workshops to help marketers and their agency partners bridge their differences and work collaboratively on improving both their relationship and work product.    Marketers and their agency partners are urged to unite as one and attend this workshop together!

This highly interactive course is filled with insights, real life examples, and many role-playing exercises. Some exercises will give the client the chance to role play agency and the agency attendees the chance to role play marketer. You will learn best practices that teach you how to better work with your marketing or agency partner, providing maximum impact for successful work.  When you “walk in your partner’s shoes” you will know how to avoid “us versus them” behavior and how to become a valued business partner.

Workshop benefits:

• Understand how to effectively communicate a creative brief from either the client and/or agency perspective.
• Understand best practices on how to present and provide feedback during a creative presentation.
• Learn how to handle difficult situations such as high expectations with a short delivery of client work. 
• Acquire tips and techniques on how to negotiate compensation and other contract provisions from the marketers and agencies perspective.
• Learn how to conduct mutually beneficial performance reviews

Note: The ANA will provide ANA member pricing to up to two agency reps invited by a client attendee. 

Who is this Workshop For?

This workshop is for Marketers and agency personnel responsible for managing agency/marketer relationships.  This workshop will also benefit those responsible for the financial relationship such as procurement, strategic sourcing and purchasing managers. This workshop is ideal for marketers and account executives developing their roles.  This workshop is also a solid refresher for more advanced marketers, agency personnel, and procurement executives.

When

Where

Reed Smith LLP
599 Lexington Avenue
22nd Floor
New York, NY 10022

Registration Pricing

Early-bird pricing is in effect through 08/16/2013

Instructor: Joanne Davis

Joanne Davis is president of Joanne Davis Consulting, which she founded in 2000. The firm specializes in agency search and compensation, client/agency relationship optimization, training and coaching for marketers, and procurement. Clients include and have included ExxonMobil, Johnson & Johnson, Macy’s, Marriott International, Pfizer, Subway, and leading companies in multiple industries. Prior to starting her firm, Ms. Davis spent 18 months as acting chief marketing officer of the U.S. Department of Defense. She began her career on the agency side.

She is the author of several best-selling books for the ANA and the 4A’s including Agency Audits, Optimizing Client-Agency Relations, A Marketer’s Guide to Conducting an Agency Search, and Build a Better Financial Relationship with Your Agency. Ms. Davis is a member of the executive committee of the board of directors, a former president, and foundation chair of the Advertising Club; a former governor and board member of the American Advertising Federation; and she is a five-time Effie judge. She was profiled by USA Today as one of the five best rainmakers in the U.S., selected by Advertising Age as one of the original 25 Women to Watch, and she has received numerous Presidents’ Awards from advertising clubs. She has a B.A. from the College of New Rochelle and did postgraduate work at New York University.

Ms. Davis has spoken on four continents on client-agency optimization, agency models, and agency search and selection, including in the Kremlin in Moscow, Venice, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Paris, London, and throughout the United States. She has been involved with the ANA since 2002 as a speaker and author. A member of the faculty of the School of Marketing since 2004, she has been the lead instructor for Optimizing Client/Agency Relations.

Agenda