From Cleaning Hotel Rooms to Rooming With Rockstars, Here's How Agencies Get to Know Their Clients

When Molly George moved from the client side of marketing to the agency world, she was assured by a mentor that she would not be expected to study the intricacies of the brands she worked on—she would just have to “be the connector.” Nine years into her self-made gig as the co-founder and CEO of Kickstand Communications, she found that this couldn't be further from the truth. “We do our best work by having just as a deep, if not a deeper, understanding of our clients’ business,” George told Adweek, adding that investing the time and effort it takes to build a genuine passion for the brands she touches is “not something that can be faked.” When it comes to their expectations from agencies, CMOs have told Adweek that they set the bar pretty high—they look for shops with top-tier communications skills, disruptive creative ideas and competitive data capabilities. While brands’ preferences on billing structures and the best way to pitch them vary, one thing that they can agree on is the value of industry immersion. Agency employees find creative ways to dive into their clients’ businesses, taste-testing entire fast-food menus, picking up welding skills and riding go-karts along the way. And amidst the ambitious food sampling and fearless excursions, shops are putting in impressive work to internalize consumers' pain points, optimize corporate purpose and embrace the complexities of what it means to build a brand. “Brands are not used to many people on their agency teams knowing the products, so when I express my experience with them it shows that I’m dedicated to understanding who they are and what they offer,” said Tiana Madera, account director of social and influencer marketing at creative agency 160over90. “It’s important that clients don’t think I only think about them from 9 to 5 Monday to Friday.” "I worked on a sports betting app, but sports betting wasn't legal yet in New York. So in order to understand the product, its UX and potential differentiators we'd have to ferry over to New Jersey so we could use the app. Definitely the first time I've been able to bill hours for betting from a New Jersey bar. —Samantha Deevy, partner in communications strategy, FIG Doing the field work It was a bad day to be an office bathroom on the afternoon that agency Bright Red of Tallahassee, Fla. decided to taste test every item on Krystal Burger’s menu. After driving an hour and a half to the QSR's nearest location, the team made its way back to the office with full stomachs, fresh social marketing ideas and perhaps a sprinkling of regret. “The team lead went right up to the counter and said ‘We’ll have everything on the menu,’ and we all felt the consequences later,” said former employee Ashley Rutstein, who shared that the full-service shop won Krystal Burger’s social account in 2013. Agency leaders told Adweek their immersion experiences run the gamut. Lindsey McNabb Hover, executive director of brand and partnerships at FIG, got her hair and makeup professionally done before every pitch meeting for a beauty brand. Carlos Figueroa, creative director at The Waldorf Agency, made a move with his art director into “a very big rock singer's’” house for five weeks to internalize his creative process. Charlene Coughlin, president of independent agency Twist Creative, braved her way through four welding school lessons, despite self-described lackluster skills, in the name of client immersion for manufacturing company Lincoln Electric. “The experience helped me to quickly know what to look for when reviewing work or kicking off a project with our internal teams,” said Couglin, adding that she needed to learn the difference between stick welding and MIG welding. “We were able to more quickly and make decisions because of that experience.” "When Staples asked us to design Back to School Supplies, we went straight to the people who were using them—kids. Sixth graders to be exact. We held co-design sessions in their classroom and turned the tables so they were actually part of the design thinking process." — Rinat Aruh, co-founder of design agency Aruliden Conducting the research When it comes to digging up dirt on clients, agency employees are willing to put in the work with some dedicated and offbeat research methods. Drago Mlakar, creative director at Croatian agency andGustav, activates what he calls “dumb guy mystery shopping,” in which he calls clients’ store locations and asks them peculiar questions. When working for Telco, he asked the employee on the other line what to do if the internet becomes “too fast for (his) computer.” According to Mlakar, the goal of any research endeavor on a brand is to pinpoint exactly “why haters hate them, and why fans love them.” Karen Piper, director of strategy at digital experience agency Grow, researches the strengths and weakness of a brand by typing their name and the word “is” into a search engine. The shop has done work with Lululemon, which includes the suggested searches “Lululemon is a cult,” “Lululemon is always sold out” and “Lululemon is overrated.” According to Matt McDermott, president and CEO of Harvey Agency, approaching business with the skepticism of a consumer is crucial. “Research needs to uncover the barriers to action, and begin to answer how we overcome them,” he said. “Anything that doesn’t get us closer to that is noise.” "For a hotel rebranding, our client provided the team of creatives accommodations in the hotel for two weeks, so we could understand the inner workings of it. How guests were catered to, how the personnel worked behind closed doors, team meetings every morning, food deliveries. We even took a two-day room cleaning course." — Carlos Figueroa, creative director at The Waldorf Agency [Editor's note: When this article was first published, this quote was misattributed to Stephanie Hanley, Head of Account Management, Fitzco] Building brand love In psychology, The Exposure Effect refers to the human tendency to develop a stronger affinity for the things we are most familiar with and exposed to. Applying that logic to agency-client relationships, the tendency for shops to gradually develop a stronger allegiance for the brands they touch checks out. In 1946, Madera’s grandfather founded MVNP, a Hawaiian advertising agency and public relations firm. As a little girl, she listened to him gush about clients, but she was skeptical when he shared that his favorite brands were also his favorite clients. More than 10 years into her marketing carer, she realizes that her grandfather was onto something. “It’s worth something to believe in the brands you work on,” she said. “If not, then find a brand you believe in.” How One of the World’s Fastest Growing Ad Agencies Nurtures Talent