If you’re finding yourself managing multiple suppliers, with too many meetings, twice the admin and slipping into full-time brand co-ordinator to keep everyone on the same page, you’re probably thinking maybe it’s time to consider a full-service agency. But what are the advantages?
There are many advantages to using a full-service agency, but let’s start with the top four:
Full-service agencies partner with clients along their brand journey, accumulating a significant amount of knowledge along the way. Not just about the brand but about the delicate relationships that can exist between key stakeholders. The way the brand is handled client side is an insight that agencies seek to acquire as quickly as possible. An understanding of the client’s business, the pathway to key decision making, logistics, timeframes, past successes and failures – all of these need to be understood so they can be managed effectively.
Because full-service agencies seek to fully partner with clients, the benefits of a true and deeper understanding generate efficiencies that result in less wastage of resources, whilst creating cost savings. But more importantly, as partners they achieve great results together.
The most powerful brands in the world have one thing in common – consistency. To build a great brand, there must be full understanding of every facet of the brand including its evolution. And an understanding of the landscape in which it exists; the threats, the opportunities, and how to ride the wave of market dynamics.
A centralised location with strategic specialists and key assets at hand ensures roll-out, both above and below the line, is in perfect synergy. The left hand is constantly aware of what the right hand is doing without the client needing to act as go between. With constant consideration of all aspects of the brand communications, it is also more efficient and limits compromising the brand consistency or creating weak links in the marketing chain.
As many Marketing Managers can attest to, it is well-known that a huge amount of time, effort and money is wasted dealing with multiple groups for the roll-out of communications strategies. This is driven by the misconception that areas of specialty can come only from category specific suppliers. For example, web design should only be delivered by a digital specialist agency, rather than a full-service agency. But that simply isn’t the case.
Full-service agencies develop areas of speciality across all the touch points of the marcoms roll-out. They employ only the most skilled, highly experienced and/or highly awarded sets of specialists for every touchpoint a brand might require. All of whom understand the brand and are members of the core brand team, living and breathing the journey with the client.
By utilising specialists under one roof, clients also have access to a uniformed approach of their business objectives, with increased efficiencies, reduced costs and greater brand guardianship. Moving through to delivery, full-service agencies also build in checkpoints to ensure brand strategy and style guidelines are observed, something clients would otherwise have to manage themselves across multiple suppliers – which can be a total pain!
With the greater emergence of digital over the last 10 years, particularly social, clients have been tempted to use a rotation of agencies to deliver sections of their marcoms calendar in the belief that it would save money, or based on the idea that specialist agencies must be better if they supply a single service. But the brand is not one singular piece of communication in isolation. It is multiple moving parts, all of which are only effective when carefully considered, managed and viewed holistically.
The advantage is not in simply using any full-service agency, but using the right full-service agency. An agency that is strong in every area, under one roof, fully focused on the brand and partnering with clients to achieve success.
Which brings us to Rare. As WA’s largest independent full-service agency with 17 years’ experience, Rare offers clients significant advantages by providing specialist consultancy across strategy, brand, design, advertising, marketing, digital and social.
