How do you get to Trust? Drink your clients' Kool-Aid

In Forbes today a survey conducted by a marketing consulting firm tells us that advertisers continue to be frustrated with their agencies.

A client of ours asked me today what I think the cause is.

It starts with money.  But it comes down to one thing:  Trust.

Why does it start with money?  Because of our flailing economy, there’s just less of it to go around.

When there’s less money to go around, that goes double for marketing, as companies look to maximize resources in ways that can show better proof of spend, like sales, supply chain, and finance.

Because there’s less money to go around, margins are thinner.

Because margins are thinner, the level of fear is exponentially increased.   Every decision is scrutinized and questioned.

And when fear goes up, trust goes the opposite way.  And trust is everything when it comes to partnership and collaboration.

The symptoms are numerous:  Clients may feel that agencies don’t make their business a high enough priority or put their best people on it; they may feel like they’re paying too much money or not getting enough value. 

Or they just might not feel like they’re getting the strategic and creative thought partnership they crave (and pay for).

So how does an agency get to Trust?  It’s not so complicated.  

Throw yourself into their business.  Learn what makes them tick, dig into their category, interact with their brand and product, live a day or week in their shoes. 

Study their past successes, talk to people who’ve been part of them, learn from them.   Really believe in what they do and how they’ve succeeded.

Drink their Kool-Aid. You'll be surprised at what a big difference it can make.

Agencies are struggling to be trusted because they have a hard time dedicating the resources for their people to have even just a sip of Kool-Aid.  They're just stretched too thin. The irony is, the survey finds that advertisers want agencies to deliver “more for less.”  

One good way to do that is to have a more efficient, more nimble agency.  Which explains the rise of small and medium sized independents. 

So if trust is everything, one way to get there is clear:  reduce the size of your agency or create a not-so-big one from scratch.

Or as Steve Martin once said, get small. 

Consider your point of view as temporary

Not the advice Barack and Mitt are getting from their advisors as they prepare for tonight’s debate.  But great advice Jeff Bezos gave to the folks at 37signals yesterday in a 90 minute visit.

Jeff said that people who are right a lot of the time are people who change their minds.  They revise and reconsider points of view and are open to new ideas and information.

Certainly true of Zappos, and of 37signals, two companies that uniquely combine innovation and adaptation.

I’ve been in plenty of companies where this wonderful flip-floppiness was called “Lack of conviction.” When due dates are approaching at the speed of sound, margins are increasingly thinner, and clients are exponentially more fearful, who wants someone who can’t stick to his decisions?

Apparently, the most innovative and smartest companies in America.

Innovation in TV programming from the folks who brought you whammies and zonks

As our two Presidential hopefuls go toe to toe, most recently touting their own pro-female credentials, another gender-inequality barrier has been smashed, and none too soon:

The Price is Right has hired a male model.

Come on down, Rob Wilson, you’re the first male model on the Price is Right!

Three finalists were put through their paces, including showing their excitement as they were each called to "come on down," and experiencing the frantic pace of a costume change.

After the dust cleared and America voted, Mr. Wilson had defeated the other two finalists, Clint Brink and Nick Denbeigh (yes, that’s their real (stage) names), to win the right to snuggle up to Drew Carey and show off the latest in refrigerators and speedboats.

In a world where men are increasingly moving into traditionally female jobs, I applaud this bold move.    

Nowhere in the history of civilization could people like Chuck Woolery, Bert Convy, Gene Rayburn, and of course, Alex Trebek have become household names if not for game shows.  For decades, game shows were part of the fabric of our culture, and to see shows like Password and The $10,000 Pyramid decrease in number and relevance since their heyday has been crushing for anyone who grew up watching them in the ‘70’s. 

So it’s good news to see some fresh thinking from the folks who brought us whammies, zonks, and "The Password is..."

The bad news is, he’s only on the show for this week only.  Friday’s his last day heroically clapping for a contestant to spin the Showcase Showdown wheel and speechlessly displaying the finest products American ingenuity has to offer.  So tune in now or you’ll miss him.

I’m not sure Bob Barker would approve.  But I’d bet he’d like to see such fresh thinking on the Price is Right

Let’s hear it for innovative ideas in the world of aging dinosaurs.

Everything I needed to know about product development, I learned from a 10-year old.

Her name is Lily and her dad’s name is Joe Born.  Melissa Harris wrote about them in the Chicago Tribune over the weekend. Joe is a successful lifelong inventor, which helps explain why Lily invents things too. 

Her grandfather has Parkinson’s Disease, which causes him to frequently spill beverages.  Lily wanted to create a spillproof cup for him.

So naturally, she conducted some focus groups, developed some insights, wrote some concepts, tested them qualitatively, refined them, tested them quantitatively, refined them some more, did some BASES testing, went through several rounds with Legal and R&D, then got the go-ahead to create a model of the cup.

Actually, her process was a little more simple.

1. Assess the challenge

2. Sketch out a solution

3. Build a prototype

4. Go to your dad’s friend’s pottery studio in China to create pre-production samples

Other than the China part, it’s pretty simple, intuitive stuff.  In her dad’s words, “The is the way you should do product development.”  It led to her creation of the  Kangaroo Cup, which is basically a cup with legs.  Duh.

When it comes to product innovation, if you know what the challenge is, and have an insight around how to solve it, and have just a little bit of sketching skills (or have a friend who does), you can do a pretty good job of developing great product ideas.  Even if you don’t have a friend in China.

Of course, it isn’t always that easy in corporate America.  There’s lot more at stake than a coffee cup with legs and I’m not sure Lily would survive longer than a few hours.  That said, she still has a lot to teach us.  Primarily, that understanding a challenge can lead to a simple, desirable solution:

 An idea with legs.