And yes, maybe I just need to give Emakina a try, who knows I just might. Let’s discuss in 3 weeks, we could maybe even place a bet on it. We’re in the right place to do so then aren’t we ;)

First, we integrate all the specialists : we don’t outsource, we don’t use freelancers. This is why we had to grow up to 275 people as the complexity of our work, the challenge we take with our customers need a lot of talent and brains. We work all together in the same agency to help our customers reach their business goal, we take the overall responsibility on the final results. We do not waste time getting business from another contractor or finding who else could be guilty for failure of a project.

Secondly, you may have notice that our motto is now “Interactive Solutions”. Not “billing as much as we can while trying to achieve something the customer will like” ;-)

We work in forfeit model with cost estimate per project when we start a relationship with a customer. And we forecast several round of changes for creation. The good news that our talent usually get it right the first time ;-)

… However, once our customers know how efficient/reliable we are, how creative/innovative we are, and the added creative value we deliver, day after day, we often move together to a time & material billing model which is the only way to pay the right price in the service industry. It’s a matter of getting their trust and their is only one way : begin honest through the all company from the CEO to the simple worker.

We offered several time to be compensated in a percentage of our customers revenues, or per clic/registration/customer acquisition, but we where so successful that our customer prefer to pay the time our creation cost instead of the real value it create to them. This is unfortunate, and I still hope to get rich one day being paid the right price for our work ;-)

In the meantime, if you want to experience an Agency 2.0 today, just try Emakina.

(Sorry for the self promotion but I took your article, comments and twitter invitation as a provocation ;-)

And another thing – whether they had a ‘solution’ in the contract or not – I bet Nintendo didn’t argue with their agency when they sold out of Xboxes before Christmas and stopped their advertising because they didn’t have any left to sell.

I’ve been thinking on the train on how we could get this conversation more in front of the agencies, together with the whole Content Manifesto: http://www.thekaiser-edition.com/the-content-manifesto/

The only valid answer I can think of, is measurable KPIs. Every campaign starts with a communication or business objective. I don’t think Microsoft (or any other sain company advertises just for the heck of it.) So basically, the exercise that an advertiser needs to do is ask himself a clear question: “What is my goal and what is that objective worth?”
The agency willing to commit to that goal at the given price is your agency.

How does that resolve the design issue? Simple: you pay the agreed price and the agency will be responsible for delivering results. If the objective is sharp enough, the design will have to be cutting-edge, the tone of voice in the copy will have to be spot-on. The execution will have to be damn close-to-perfect. But you shouldn’t care about that, the agency should: they are the ones that committed to results. If their campaign doesn’t work, they’ll have to adapt (and yes, they will have to do that a lot; in true 2.0 spirit, the campaign will be a perpetal bèta).

The agency willing to do that, is your 2.0 agency. The client willing to trust an agency that much, is your 2.0 client.

(sorry for the double post of the reaction, you can delete the previous one, I was posting under another account when I published it)