Building trust and communication in client-advertising agency relationships

Clients are the lifeblood of an advertising agency. Developing a relationship with clients begins with the initiation of the professional relationship and contract, and continues as the agency works to help the client achieve advertising goals. The client-agency relationship hinges on the element of trust, which in turn requires strong and active bilateral communication, astute problem-solving and crisis resolution, and visionary creativity. “98% of both clients and agencies believe that a trust-based union leads to better work,” (Fera, 2014). Two-way communication is the most critical element of the ongoing agency-client relationship, requiring both parties to speak freely and honestly (Akrani, 2013). The evolution of the relationship with the client is important because it helps promote effective creative advertising campaigns that reach their target markets effectively and efficiently. One of the most important steps in developing a relationship with a client is disclosing the boundaries and limitations of the relationship. An advertising agency is not fulfilling a general marketing role; marketing strategy is completely different from advertising strategies. Therefore, the advertising agency needs to communicate with the client their roles. The client also needs to advise the advertising agency of its overall marketing strategy to ensure that the creative work the agency completes matches the theme and voice of the client’s brand, vision, or goal. Advertising agencies are comprised of diverse groups of creative professionals who are adept at translating ideas and concepts into action, helping the client achieve tangible goals. To achieve those tangible goals requires partnership, mutual respect, and frequent communication. Regular meetings ensure that each step of the process of creating an effective advertising campaign remains on point with the client’s goals, and what the agency is capable of achieving (Akrani, 2013). The creative team within an advertising agency uses “appeals” to the target market. Those appeals and other message strategies are based often on experience, but also on research and evidence in the fields of marketing research or consumer behavior. When creative teams choose the appeals or strategies, they may rely on verbal, visual, or auditory cues. Those cues will merge with the client’s overall vision and goal in promoting their brand, service, or product in ways that are consistent with their business strategy. The creative team may be tacitly aware of the client’s overall marketing strategy, but works separately to generate content that will have a direct emotional appeal to the target market. Furthermore, both client and creative team will be aware of different media for transmitting the advertising messages. Collaborating on which media to use, when, why, and how, the client and the agency can work together to achieve mutual goals. Initial interviews and consultations with the client will help the creative team to understand what appeals to focus on, which emotions to invoke in the target market, and how to generate long-term advertising campaigns that solidify brand identity and brand recognition. Messages should remain consistent, yet refreshed whenever possible to appeal to different demographics or different generations. Finally, the advertising agency needs to remain respectful of the client’s ethical framework when developing their appeals. The creative team might have fabulous ideas for how to appeal to a target market, but if their ideas conflict with the client’s idea of how the product should be presented to consumers, the agency needs to respect the client’s wishes. A client might not want to use sex appeal, or may not want to place advertisements in media that it disagrees with politically. Rarely, the client and agency will reach irreconcilable differences with regards to their advertising visions. When that happens, the agency can recommend allied agencies who can provide the type of creative services the client might need. Otherwise, the agency can usually work to fulfill the client’s needs and achieve the goals of advertising within the client’s budget.