One of the things that interests me about football is the approach to management that the different clubs take. You have the Arsenal’s & Man Utd’s of this world who have stuck with one manager for decades & been very successful (maybe not Utd in recent times but they’re getting back there now with Mourinho) & then you have the Chelsea’s & Man City’s who change their managers on a regular basis. You can make a case for both approaches being successful & I think there’s a real similarity with agencies & clients.
There are potential advantages & disadvantages to both ideologies. Learning about a brand, it’s ethos, their people & their aims long term versus the freshness change brings, dealing with the here & now, generating urgency & really get things moving. The potential staid, repetitive, same old same old versus the potential chaos of short termism.
The Mammoths are definitely in the Arsenal / Man Utd camp; we’ve worked with the vast majority of our clients for a good number of years. I’ve seen the impact that we’ve had on a new account but, in all honesty that’s usually been because the previous supplier wasn’t very good. What we try to do is treat every project like it’s a new one, whilst keeping that knowledge, those years of learning tucked away for us to draw on at any moment.
I’ve worked with Lyreco for 11 years now & every year we generally walk away from their big Kickstart event with the words “best one ever” ringing in our ears. I know their brand inside out, I mean, I’d be a bit crap if I didn’t after 11 years wouldn’t I? 2 years ago, I pitched them an idea for the event. It was a bit forward thinking, a bit edgy, but as with all the best ideas it came together really quickly & I knew pretty much exactly what the graphics would look like, what the Opening Sting would look like, everything really, even down to the digital signage around the venue. They weren’t quite ready to do it at the 2016 event but as soon as discussions started about 2017, they told me “we want to do Disruption”. We delivered that event for them in January 2017 & it was bloody brilliant & the feedback has been fantastic. No one else could’ve delivered that event for them. No one else could’ve written the scripts or produced the content that would have resonated so fantastically with their delegates. It’s the culmination of 11 years’ knowledge of their brand & a fantastic client who trusts us to deliver but gives us the freedom to be creative. I absolutely love that!