February is not just the month of love, but is also the month of love lost between top brands and the agencies that partner their inspired and hard-driven marketing teams.
And when love is lost, sometimes a love potion is just what the doctor orders. In this case an evaluation love potion, delivered with some tender loving care by an industry expert.
Rather than a mythical object of desire, the Independent Agency Search and Selection Company (IAS) has designed and developed just such a potion. And we are delighted to be re-launching it in its new format.
The TLC Programme is an effective and proactive management tool that can diagnose problem areas and put a plan of action in place to fix them. The IAS developed it in an industry that constantly faces the ubiquitous challenge of often trading in creativity and intuition, not easily quantifiable assets.
An objective and comprehensive evaluation system can medicate a dissatisfying climate of client/agency working relationship and heal it by creating a safe environment for both parties that actively reduces uncertainty and promotes a more resilient and caring relationship between each party.
When both parties have legitimate issues to sort out, when the relationship isn’t working as planned, the opportunity to discuss these issues rarely presents itself at a time when both parties are open to finding solutions.
Which is why the IAS recognised that often all that is needed is a little tender loving care.
The IAS’ TLC Programme helps clients and agencies as an external medium, to evaluate current relationships on a number of different – all critical – factors and levels. These factors are often very obvious ones and overlooked as a result.
As they evaluate their own respective performances across those same criteria (self-evaluation), we are able to identify gaps which are then analysed as part of the reporting back process. When both parties meet and we present back to them to ensure that there is transparency along with the results, we make recommendations and put measurements in place for further evaluation at a later stage.
Many leave it too late into the business year to address problems, so the sooner clients and agencies and apply some TLC to their relationships the better. If used early, it can eliminate future relationship and communication breakdowns, because delivery expectations are already in place and agreed. A relationship audit should be standard practice if clients want to effectively manage and maintain a proactive rapport – that in the end produces quality results.
The reality is that client/agency relationships are constantly being tested – and often fail. Finding out why a relationship is failing is key to not having the same situation happen again with a new agency, but if the problem can be fixed between a current agency/client relationship this is always first prize.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
