The One Trick Pony

There is a creative void at the top of a lot of agencies, with burnt-out VPs who had one great campaign idea somewhere in their career and haven’t been able to come up with an original thought to match ever since.

Whether it's a particular kind of launch event, a poll, a grassroots program, or a certain flavour of guerrilla branding initiative – too many agencies survive on recycling the same core ideas for every new client they meet.

I don't mean to dismiss the agencies who can justifiably take pride in keeping a narrow focus; positioning themselves as specialists in a particular type of PR. Nothing wrong with that approach at all – knowing what you're good at and sticking to it makes abundant sense.

The covert One Trick Pony, on the other hand, claims to be a generalist "full service" agency, but their limited creative range is all too soon revealed.

If the agency staff are too overworked to develop a really innovative campaign, or they just haven't spent the time to actually listen to the client and learn about their business, then the simplest thing to do is just reuse the same old tried and tested program frameworks. At least they can say: "we know it works – we've done it before."

I know of one agency where every client program is built around the bigass media tour. They have a pretty healthy network of media relationships, and years of experience pulling together the logistics of the classic coast-to-coast tour of "deskside briefings". This part of the job they do extraordinarily well.

They’re adept at introducing new clients to their friends in the media across the US, and the clients always start off thinking they're getting great service. Movement = activity, right?

But a slew of meetings with well-placed editors doesn't necessarily translate into a bucket of positive coverage. Nor is it going to do anything to move your brand in the longer term. It's a step - not a campaign. And after the initial tour, the agency in question tends to sit back into pure reactive mode – taking whatever news the client has to offer, and trotting it around to the same list of contacts, without any strategic, long term thought or value being added.

They're a One Trick Pony. I quickly scraped through the veneer of their expertise when the firm I was with hit a crisis point, and we turned to the agency for counsel. Their advice? They wanted to "get us out on the road" to meet with editors and explain our side of the crisis over lunch. Sheesh.

Look – doing the deskside tour thing is not a bad tactical element as part of an overall, strategic campaign approach. It's good to meet the people you want to talk to face-to-face, and start the long process of establishing credibility.

But if it's the only spanner in your toolbox, your…um…nuts will soon work…er…loose. (Can someone please invent a thesaurus for metaphors).

If you're looking to hire a new agency, ask them for some sample proposals they've written for other clients and prospects even before they sit down to write a proposal for you.

This is less work for them, so they shouldn't have any issue. You're looking for evidence of any cookie-cutter, find & replace program sections.

If they play the confidentiality card, offer to sign an NDA or something. If that doesn't work, or you’re just uncomfortable asking – you should build some good questions into your RFP process. Ask them "what percentage of your RFP response is original content, developed specifically for this proposal?" or something of the sort.

And when you're meeting with your shortlist candidates – get them to walk you through the big, creative parts of their proposal – ask for examples of similar programs they've run in the past.

Look at their portfolio of work, their clippings book – see any common themes running through the coverage they've been getting?

Part One: The Classic Sweatshop
Part Three: The Behemoth
Part Four: The Flack of All Trades
Coming soon - Part Five: If It Moves, Bill It!