Are you getting the right kind of support from your agency?

This post is sponsored by Moving Bits.

Many people think that as an agency that primarily produces videos that inspire people to action™ as our stock in trade, that creativity, quality and service are what our clients come looking for from us.

In practising our craft commercially for more than two decades now, the qualities mentioned above are given and expected, really. Our clients (both current and potential) know that we deliver these in spades even before we get to the brief.

Which led me to think:

ARE YOU GETTING THE RIGHT KIND OF SUPPORT FROM YOUR AGENCY?

Here’s a checklist for you to use as a guideline. Starting with:

GUIDANCE. Do you trust your agency’s advice?

For Moving Bits, guidance is what we promise to all who walk through our door. We’re never the hero of the show – our client always is. What we do is use our two decades-plus of award-winning experiences and help guide the “hero” – our client – to success, whether it is measured in the number of eyeballs, feedback from the viewer(s), or industry awards.

Here are two examples for the same client (Pan Pacific Hotels Group), different brands, and markets, that won us platinum and gold trophies recently at the MUSE Awards 2020.

This result was only possible because we’ve had a long history of working for hospitality clients, the likes of Far East Hospitality, Hilton, Raffles Hotel & Resorts, to name a few. That experience enabled us to guide the client and work with the savvy Pan Pacific Hotels Group marketing team so productively.

TRUST. Do you trust that your agency is always putting your business first?

Total trust between the agency and client is, in reality, the most challenging thing to cultivate, especially if you’re working with someone for the first time or in the early stages of that working relationship.

And, although it may be challenging to cultivate, both parties should work hard to develop it because real trust results in the client and agency making leaps together.

Take this campaign for the Singapore University of Social Sciences. We’d been working on its marketing videos for a few years. Because the client’s team and our team had built up a great degree of trust, this year, we were able to launch theirs and our first podcast series together successfully with very little (if any at all) hiccups along the way.

Seeking ADVICE – you from your vendor or your vendor from you – is a natural flow of this trusting relationship. Sometimes that request for advice has nothing to do with work at all! It could be about kids, kids’ schoolwork, or personal relationships.

You’ve reached this stage, or as one of our clients puts it: “When the client-agency relationship becomes friendship through the years, you know something is right!” It’s a potent moment when your relationship arrives in this zone. And one that needs to be guarded and protected because it is so easy to be abused by either party, destroying everything you’ve worked so hard to build together.

Also, suppose your agency does work internationally (meaning the primary team and not just another outpost of the company); in this case, the guidance and support you’ll get will be worth double its weight in gold.

Why? Because genuine international experience in our business is few and far between. So when the agency you have has this rare quality, you know that its advice will always be informed by its high-level marketing knowledge gleaned from working in international waters. And that is something you’ll always want to have in your back pocket. It could make all the difference in your next marketing campaign.

As our Hong Kong-based MNC client said: “Moving Bits is the production agency who knows Asia. They possess a global view, plus they’re a great working partner with world-class quality and efficiency.” Having that global view, it’s a game-changer.

And finally, SUPPORT, ASSISTANCE, and HELP.

I’m talking about support and help such as opening the office on a Sunday morning because your boss wants to make a minor change for the conference on Monday morning.

It’s actual situations like this that helps build the trust that allows us to act as Yoda to our client’s Luke Skywalker.

If your current agency possesses most of these qualities, it is my humble suggestion that you treasure it. I’m pretty sure the agency will work very, very hard not ever to let you down.

If not? Well, you know where to reach me. 

The writer is Michell Tan, GM of Moving Bits.

About Moving Bits: Videos that Inspire People to Action™ is a CANNES Lion nominee and an award-winning creative agency with offices in Singapore and New York. It is a member of TheNetworkOne, the world’s leading independent agency network for advertising, communications, PR, media, and digital agencies. Click here to find about more.