Campaigns are the cornerstone of agency relationships and the peaks and troughs that punctate their creation and eventual end are what makes them truly exciting projects. Senior Account Manager Emily Hutson discusses the need to create longevity in campaigns and the natural handover from agency to client following success.
The joy and sorrow of the creative agency’s dichotomy is nurturing a campaign from inception through to fruition. Our primary aim is to create a robust concept that is fully realised in a way that provides longevity for the client, but all in the knowledge that successfully achieving this means our spate as caretaker will come to an end.
There is a natural lifecycle with all campaigns in agency, and in most instances there are two ways the process can begin. In the first instance, the agency is typically approached by internal marketing teams to seize upon an opportunity with an appropriately positioned campaign, or in the second, they inherit a campaign from predecessors who have already been through the earlier experience.
It’s the first scenario I want to focus on…
At Mobas saying the words ‘new campaign’ is akin to activating Russian sleeper agents during the Cold War. For whatever reason it stirs something in the team. I’d like to think this is linked to the internal collaboration needed to piece together the finished product as, when dissected, the execution of an omni-channel campaign requires input from every division of expertise.
The art of the campaign is in its seamless presentation to client, the natural fit of the strategy to the target audience, how the tactical deployment mirrors the market trends, and the creative execution that feels vanguard, exciting and different – while somehow feeling familiar and in keeping with the end consumer’s world view.
For a short period of time, often hundreds of hours are poured into crafting a campaign that has it all. Campaigns that land are those which assimilate with the audience: they weave into the fabric of their values and ethoses, and they are bespoke to a snapshot in time – with a futureproof foundation. Once released into the wild they do require incremental revisions, refinements and readjustments, but the strength of the work prior to this creates a stable entity that can be deployed through multiple channels, in numerous territories, and by all stakeholders without fear of dilution or deviation from the core objectives.
Standout creative campaigns can often run for years without any fundamental changes being made. Take for example Red Bull ‘Gives you wiiings’ which has been going strong for 30 years. If you’re the team that came up with this idea, you’re pretty pleased with yourselves initially, but a few years down the line (let alone 30!), you become aware that the vision is so strong it transcends the creator and can lead a life without you.
