Despite the pressures placed on the relationship by factors such as corporate downsizings, account consolidations and budget reductions, clients and agencies appear much closer in their values, beliefs, goals and expectations of the relationship than many would suspect.

An informal Strategy poll of national clients suggests, expectedly perhaps, that they have a much more positive outlook on the state of the relationship than their agency peers.

In an article in the March 3 issue of Strategy, examining the story from the agency perspective, agency presidents expressed frustration at the erosion of their status as trusted, valued partners and at the daily battles they fight to win fair compensation for their services.

The clients interviewed for this article say they do, in fact, view their agencies as partners, value their contributions to their business and encourage them to be proactive and involved in aspects of their businesses beyond advertising.

While some clients might lack respect for their agencies, agency practitioners appear to believe this is more prevalent than clients do. The bashing suffered by agencies during the industry downsizing that took place in the early 1990s, in terms of both revenue and number of employees, may have fostered this lack of self-esteem.

The other major agency concern, compensation, is one area where the two sides agree to disagree. Downsizing also took its toll on clients and their budgets, and, as a result, they became much more circumspect in their spending.

Clients believe agencies should be fairly remunerated but, at the same time, demand the freedom to tailor compensation to the services they require.

On the issue of autonomy, independent agency presidents also said they have a number of concerns about the state of the industry in Canada. In particular, they bemoaned the fact it is becoming increasing difficult to attract top talent to the business, and they said international account consolidations continue to undermine the roles of both clients and agencies.

Clients expressed similar concerns, although they appear to feel consolidation is less of an issue since companies may downsize in Canada but generally continue to staff offices to handle local marketing initiatives.

On the whole, those clients interviewed say they have satisfying partnerships with their current agencies mainly because of open communication and mutual respect.

But this hasn’t always been the case. Many clients say they have endured poor relationships with agencies in the past, but having learned from their experiences, now understand how to make the relationship work.

Ron Lund, president and ceo of the Association of Canadian Advertisers, says rather than beat each other up, it’s time for both sides to address the issues underlying the client-agency relationship.

‘I think agencies have to recognize that the relationship has changed. It comes down to, what are you giving me today? What are you contributing to my business?

‘That’s the new reality. Even if the economy changes, it won’t change back,’ he says.

Ironically, notes Lund, at a time when clients and agencies are experiencing an erosion of trust, clients actually need to rely more on their agencies these days because downsizing has left marketing departments short staffed and wanting in depth and experience.

Murray Douglas, president of Toronto-based Christie Brown, agrees. He says being attuned to the consumer is paramount in marketing today, but clients don’t necessarily have the staff to do it well, and therefore, they must rely on their agencies to help them.

Douglas says, ‘I wish we – the people inside Christie Brown – all had the time and attention to have that unyielding commitment to the consumer.

‘You really have to count on your agency to have that commitment to the consumer. That’s their focus.’

Douglas says clients also want the agencies to take the initiative, to always be thinking about the business and to surprise them with suggestions and recommendations.

He says there isn’t any intellectual capital generated when agencies view a client’s business on a project-by-project basis.

Michael Sharp, vice-president of advertising and strategic services for Sprint Canada, says his company tries very much to ‘walk the talk’ when it comes to viewing its relationships with its agencies as true partnerships.

‘They’re involved in communication-related issues,’ says Sharp, ‘but we also involve them in business building, business relationship and customer relationship kind of issues as well.’

According to clients, agencies that want to be effective partners have to truly know and understand their clients’ businesses.

Sharp acknowledges that some clients don’t trust their agency’s ability to really know the business from the client’s perspective – and places the blame solely on the client.

‘The advertiser gets the advertising they deserve,’ says Sharp. ‘To say the agency doesn’t really know [the client’s] business, I would say you haven’t made sure the agency knows your business. You haven’t done your job to motivate and provide direction to them.’

But Sharp goes on to say that agencies need to do their homework constantly because ‘business is so dynamic and things change so quickly.’

Across the board, clients say they choose their agencies for outstanding creative product, but by outstanding, they don’t necessarily mean creative that wins awards. What is important to them is that the agency effectively translates their business concepts and strategies into words and pictures.

But clients do recognize there is a human aspect to the relationship as well. And Sharp says winning certainly helps strengthen that relationship, whether through achieving goals or by winning awards.

He says Sprint, a direct response advertiser, supports its agencies in their pursuit of recognition.

‘We’re members of the [Canadian Direct Marketing Association] and we’ve done very well at the award shows. They’re important for our agencies,’ says Sharp.

One of the few complaints among this group of clients was the lack of continuity on their business caused by people leaving, or changing roles at, their agency.

Hando Told, director of marketing communications for DuPont Canada, says employee churn is a big problem for him because as a business-to-business advertiser, he takes a longer-term view of his agency relationships than perhaps a packaged-goods marketer might.

Compensation is a perennial bone of contention in the agency-client relationship and will likely remain so.

Agencies want fair compensation for their services and clients want to pay only for the services they use, not for the total overhead of the agency.

Laurence Boucher, associate vice-president of marketing services for Toronto-Dominion Bank, says it’s important to get the issue of fees out of the way early in an relationship so the client and agency can get down to business.

She says it’s also important for her to pay only for services needed.

Told says historically, clients have become unhappy with agency compensation when there isn’t a direct relationship between input of dollars and output of value.

‘Everybody is happy when you have a good campaign and it’s successful. Nobody talks about difficulty with billing, or that it was too expensive,’ he says.

‘It’s only too expensive when the product is not as good as you thought it was going to be.’