Shops Must Be Partners, Not Just Vendors

Tomorrow’s successful advertising agencies will have navigated an identity crisis.
 
They won’t be “vendors,” like they, or their predecessors before them, always have been. They won’t be contractors, service providers, or jobbers. They’ll be partners.
 
“Vendors” are hired to do a job — and often are paid a fee regardless of performance. Sure, they want to perform well, if only for the benefit of the client who’s hired them for an engagement or their trophy mantle. But if a vendor’s work stinks, it’s summarily pink-slipped, albeit with contracted fee in hand.
 
While