What Is "Success" In Advertising?

Dr. Neal Burns writes:

Recently I was asked to define success – what does SUCCESS really mean to advertising and marketing firms? It’s a great question and perhaps some readers of this blog – students or faculty - want to come forward and offer their definition. I’m not sure what the right or best answer is (an unforgivable moment of honesty on my part) – but here are a few thoughts that the question stimulated.

Success – for either advertising or marketing firms is clearly a term with many definitions and in the advertising business it has several manifestations – really cool offices, shelves dripping with awards, a client roster of the world’s best known brands, etc - but in any serious discussion between the agency and their client (as well as with investors) return on investment – ROI - clearly plays an important role. I think that achievement may be part or even at the center of the definition of success as well.

If we are successful the spend we have encouraged our clients to make on creative, research, team building will result in ads, experiences and messaging strategies that maintain our client’s price point, build their brands, support sales growth and increase their ability to take share. Showing that the spend generated an outstanding ROI is often the key to a successful relationship and keeps the agency as part of the client’s roster mix. (I can tell you that agencies really like that.)

Success – in another context - for experiential firms, digital design shops as well for many agencies is the ability to retain one’s customers – year after year. A successful agency business needs to establish a client core that can be counted upon so that our projected back-log and sales forecast is more than a wish list.

Clients, who have consistently enjoyed good results from the money they spent with us and repeatedly buy, season after season, promotion after promotion, are showing respect for our creative strategies, our abilities to execute and with that history the agency moves from “vendor” to “partner”. It’s a good move!

And then there is the business plan of the agency itself – its founders and investors- and the exit plan they all envisioned. Although we are clearly in a different place than the era of the ‘80’s in terms of agency acquisition, several shops and many start-ups in this business consider long term success to be an affiliation with a larger organization, the promise of the chance to work on major brands and a global perspective. and perhaps because of an acquisition leaping forward as an operating unit of an existing national digital network. And, of course hopefully, a chance to ”cash out”.

Finally, in the area of corporate social responsibility, more and more of us hope that our agency’s success – or perhaps our very purpose - will be defined by our ability and the contribution our work makes in improving the world, in fighting disease, poverty and environmental issues. Success is doing good for humankind.

Your thoughts?

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