{"id":15576,"date":"2022-06-20T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aquent.com\/?p=15576"},"modified":"2022-06-20T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2022-06-20T09:00:00","slug":"who-the-hell-invited-the-clients-into-the-agency-creative-department","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aquent.com\/en-au\/blog\/who-the-hell-invited-the-clients-into-the-agency-creative-department","title":{"rendered":"Who The Hell Invited The Clients Into The Agency Creative Department?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I'll be the first to admit that I've made a career out of reassuring my clients my team can do the things they can't. When you boil it down, that's always been an agency's <\/span>entire business model.<\/span><\/i> So how did we arrive at a place where I'm actively encouraging, recruiting, onboarding, training, and supporting my clients to produce creative marketing content?<\/span><\/p>\n

Agencies say they want to be a partner rather than a vendor. But we rarely act like it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Vendors sell, and partners help. That's the \u2018pub test' for client-agency relationships. Yes, you can (and should) charge a fee for helping your clients, but you've got to be genuine about helping them first, rather than gatekeeping skills and knowledge in order to preserve revenue<\/span>.<\/b> The eureka moment for us at<\/span> Splendid Group<\/span><\/a> came when we took a step back from re-designing our agency model and decided to think about our agency as part of our client's business model.<\/span> What would we look like if we genuinely wanted to help them create better content? We'd treat them like part of the creative team and teach them to use content creation tools. But that's crazy, right? Well, it used to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here's what's different this time:<\/h4>\n

The technology is <\/span>so much better<\/span><\/i>. Actually, that's only half the story. This better tech is also much <\/span>easier to use<\/span><\/i>. The compromise between usability and power is no longer the brutal, binary choice between learning complex software or settling for simplistic (and often awful) output.<\/span><\/p>\n

I'd like to take a moment to congratulate<\/span> Powerpoint<\/span><\/a>* for prompting this revolution. While very few capital D Designers consider it a design tool, PPT has been quietly riding that boundary between power & usability for years, although confined largely to the corporate* and education worlds. For consumers, iMovie was probably the original \u2018great equaliser'. Then<\/span> Wix<\/span><\/a> and<\/span> Squarespace<\/span><\/a> did it for web design.<\/span> Canva<\/span><\/a> is the obvious, and most recent, giant-killer for layouts, prompting<\/span> Adobe<\/span><\/a> to re-think its entire<\/span> entry-level toolset<\/span><\/a> while also prompting a raft of innovative new web-based video production toolsets, including<\/span> Riverside<\/span><\/a>,<\/span> Welder<\/span>,<\/span> Vouch<\/span><\/a> and Australia's own<\/span> StudioBucket<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The \u2018secret sauce' for these tools are their template ecosystems \u2013 3<\/span>rd<\/span> party plug-ins, add-ons, libraries and building blocks that remove the burden of \u2018origination' and put the focus on adaptation and customisation.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The most successful of these ecosystems are the ones that help you look good. Almost like a partner, rather than a vendor, if you know what I mean!<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here's why it's looking like it's going to work for clients:<\/h4>\n

Technology aside, there are several other factors at play that give me optimism for this collaborative client-agency creative model.<\/span><\/p>\n