Workshop for a non-profit organization, interested in improving collaboration skills to campaign successfully together with a creative agency.
Intention
● The intention is to improve the partnership skills of NGO staff, who work - or would like to work - in collaboration with external creative agencies on campaigns.
● The session lead, who has experience both from the client-side at Greenpeace and from working for 3 agencies, gives insights on mutual concerns and addressing them.
● Attendees exchange valuable know-how on how to successfully collaborate with a creative agency, from an adequate agency briefing documents and productive meetings with well-organized decision-making, to sufficient budgeting and agreeable timelines.
Desired Outcome
● Attendees have learned how to efficiently harness the creative power of an external agency - what’s expected from them as a client, and what they can expect from an agency.
● Attendees receive a copy of the Clients Checklist created in the workshop, which they may use as a memory aid to ease their future collaboration with creative agencies.
Presentation & Workshop by Veera Juvonen https://www.slideshare.net/veerajuvonen
1. Workshop
CAMPAIGNING WITH A CREATIVE AGENCY
Greenpeace Digital Days 5-9. June 2017
Veera Juvonen, Head of Digital at Spinas Civil Voices
Twitter: @veerajuvonen
2. AGENDA.
• Introduction 5 min
• Cases: Creative Agency+Nonprofit campaigns of Swiss quality 10 min
• Seeing through the eyes of the partner 5 min
an exercise to list concerns of the nonprofit and agency side.
• Creating a Client’s Checklist group exercise. Topics 30 min
Briefing, Meetings, Decision-making, Budgeting, Timing
• Presenting and discussing the Client’s Checklist 20 min
3. INTRODUCTION.
● Veera Juvonen
● Former Greenpeace Nordic DMM in Finland,
Employee in IT&creative agencies, entrepreneur
● Current Head of Digital in a creative agency:
● Spinas Civil Voices
● Creative agency working exclusively for NGOs
● Founded 2000 in Zürich
● Clients in Switzerland and Germany
● ~40 employees
4.
5. WHAT WE‘VE DONE WITH GREENPEACE SWITZERLAND
„BYE BYE BEZNAU“ AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER
Visible from planes
landing in Zurich –
made it to international
news
6. WHAT WE‘VE DONE WITH GREENPEACE SWITZERLAND:
„BYE BYE BEZNAU“ AGAINST NUCLEAR POWER
eBoards and location-
based mobile ads for
people in a certain
radius of the power plant
7. WHAT WE‘VE DONE WITH GREENPEACE SWITZERLAND:
„ONE PLAN TO RULE THEM ALL“ AGAINST TTIP & CO.
Went viral with 2,9
million views and was
shown in a national
television debate show
15. CLIENT CONCERNS VS. AGENCY CONCERNS
● Confidentiality
● Competing Priorities
● Competence
● Endorsing an agency
● Fees and fares, ROI
● Proactivity
● Egos
● Agility & Delays
● Efficiency
● Consistency & Quality
● Legal repercussions
● Non-compete clauses
● Idea ownership
● Promotional value
● Small budget
● Reactive mode
● Micro management
● Competing Priorities
● High Workload
● Longevity of Partnership
16. TO ADDRESS THE CONCERNS AND IMPROVE THE
COLLABORATION, YOU CAN USE A „CLIENTS CHECKLIST“
● The checklist is an memory aid for successful
collaboration with an external agency.
● It addresses the aching points in mutual
collaboration:
● Briefing documents
● Meetings & Decision-making
● Budgeting
● Timeline
18. EXERCISE
CREATING A CLIENTS CHECKLIST
1. Form groups, get a marker and flipchart paper.
2. Select your 1st topic to work on. You‘ll get to work on all.
● Briefing documents
● Timeline
● Meetings & Decision-making
● Budgeting
3. Take 10 minutes to discuss in your group and write down
bullet points, how to make the Agency+Greenpeace
collaboration more efficient on each given topic.
4. Rotate the papers. Read what the previous group
wrote, discuss and add your own group input as bullet
points. You‘ve got max 10 minutes for each paper.
19. TOPIC: BRIEFING DOCUMENTS
● STRUCTURE A BRIEFING DOCUMENT
● Which information is essential for an creative agency
to do its work? List on a headline level.
● Consider...
● which info is not essential, to avoid „the curse of
knowledge“
● How do you measure success?
● How is the briefing delivered to an agency?
20. TOPIC: TIMELINE
DRAW A CAMPAIGN TIMELINE FROM START TO END
● How long does it take to come up with an
creative idea?
● How far in advance before a planned launch of a
campaign, should you brief an agency?
● When and how often do you meet with the
agency?
● When and how often are the feedback rounds?
● When is the success of the campaign evaluated?
21. TOPIC: MEETINGS AND DECISION-MAKING
● DRAW A MEETING TABLE AND THE PEOPLE AROUND IT.
● Who (=which roles from GP and the agency side)
should take part in the meetings?
● Who makes the final decisions? (role) and whom
s/he involves in the decision-making?
● Discuss...
● How long does an efficient meeting last?
● Which, and how many meetings are necessary for a
successful cooperation with an agency?
● How is a meeting documented?
● How do you give feedback to the agency?
22. TOPIC: BUDGETING
ALLOCATE A CAMPAIGN BUDGET.
Procentually, how much budget should be invested in a
creative work vs media budget vs Greenpeace‘s own
expenses, like events&actions? 30% - 30% -40% ?
● Consider:
● How much is an idea worth?
● Which makes most sense to you – paying an agency
a flat fee or an hourly rate?
● Are there discounts (%) for nonprofits?
● How many rounds of iterations (giving feedback to
the agency) are included in your budget?
23. LET‘S DISCUSS THE OUTCOME
● ...on how to get rid of the „Curse of Information“
with an aced Briefing document
● ...on how to end the eternal hurry with a
considerate timeline
● ...on how to have the right people in
collaborative meetings
● ...on how to budget sensibly and openly
● Please write your key learnings on Post Its!
24. Leave your email to receive a copy of the proof-written checklist and
a link to this presentation on Slideshare.
STAY IN TOUCH.
www.spinas-cv.com
Twitter: @spinascv @veerajuvonen
Facebook: spinascivilvoices
Notas do Editor
Spinas Strategic team: Founder, Creative Director, Political advisor, Digital Strategist
Client organizations in Switzerland and Germany
“Bye Bye Beznau”
April 2016
§ Awareness campaign
§ Description: Nuclear campaign to shut down the oldest power plant in the world
permanently.
§ Results: Made it to news due to a crop circle ad, visible from airplanes. The power plant
is temporarily closed since 2 years. Greenpeace recently won the right to receive the
blacked out documents of the state of the power plant – and evidently this May, the people voted yes for a new energy strategy, which entitles NOT allowing building new nuclear plants.
§ http://spinas-cv.com/project/greenpeace-schweiz
“Bye Bye Beznau”April 2016
§ Awareness campaign
§ Description: Nuclear campaign to shut down the oldest power plant in the world
permanently.
§ Results: Made it to news due to a crop circle ad, visible from airplanes. The power plant
is temporarily closed since 2 years. Greenpeace recently won the right to receive the
blacked out documents of the state of the power plant – and evidently this May, the people voted yes for a new energy strategy, which entitles NOT allowing building new nuclear plants.
§ http://spinas-cv.com/project/greenpeace-schweiz
Budget
Crop circle 30 K
Campaign site
Offline Media Space 180-200K + Free Space 100 K
“One Plan to rule them all”
§ Awareness & Mobilisation campaign
§ Description: Parody of Lord of the Rings, film against dark trade agreements. Subtitles
and voiceovers in several languages.
§ Results: went viral with 2,9 million views.
§ http://spinas-cv.com/2016/10/06/greenpeace-mobilisiert-weltweit-gegen-ttip-co/
Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DI_QnHKqrsk
Budget Film
CHF 100K Total: 20K Agency, 20K Media, 60K Film
“Ethical Smartphone ranking” 2014
Slogan„ How much blood sticks into your smartphone?“
§ Awareness campaign for consumers
§ Client: Evangelical organizations Fastenopfer & Brot für alle
§ Description: An ethical ranking of smart phone producers was published to coincide with
the launch of the new iPhone. The mobile campaign site recognized the visitors mobile
brand to play a corresponding animation of a talking phone, explaining how ethically it
has been produced.
§ Result: Almost every media outlet reporting on the new iPhone referred to the
coinciding ethical ranking.
§ http://spinas-cv.com/online-kampagnen/
“Dear George” 2012
§ Mobilisation campaign for consumers - Aim: Make the organization more known
§ Client: Solidar Suisse
§ Description: In an online campaign to drive Nestle towards fair coffee production, a
parody film of Nespresso commercials starring George Clooney was produced with a
doppelgänger. An online petition was addressed to Mr. Clooney himself.
§ Result: The film was watched millions of times, made it to news, and Nestle was
eventually persuaded to develop a corresponding Fair Trade product.
§ http://spinas-cv.com/project/solidar-suisse/
Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G8QljHVn_A
Issue: Coffee production
Restrictions: No bashing
Collaboration: Free hands!
“Dear George” 2012
§ Awareness/Mobilisation campaign for consumers - Aim: Make the organization more known. Issue: Coffee production
§ Client: Solidar Suisse
§ Description: In an online campaign to drive Nestle towards fair coffee production, a
parody film of Nespresso commercials starring George Clooney was produced with a
doppelgänger. An online petition was addressed to Mr. Clooney himself.
§ Result: The film was watched millions of times, made it to news, and Nestle was
eventually persuaded to develop a corresponding Fair Trade product.
§ http://spinas-cv.com/project/solidar-suisse/
Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G8QljHVn_A
Restrictions: No bashing
Collaboration: Free hands!
“Eurovision Song Contest” 2013
§ Client: Salvation Army
§ Awareness Campaign
§ Description: To create awareness of the Salvation Army, a song was composed with a hit
factory Hitmill, and Salvation Army was sent to compete with it in the Eurovision song
contest
§ Result: The band won the national votes and was sent to represent Switzerland in Eurovision Song contest in Malmö, Sweden. They were 13th on the semifinal with 41 points. This was the PR Stunt of the year 2013, as the Salvation Army made it to the Eurovision, producing news headlines through months!
§ http://spinas-cv.com/project/heilsarmee-eurovision/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_and_Me_(Takasa_song)
Takasa = The artist formerly known as Heilsarmee
Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKbzOIab0yM
„was haben sie von Heilsarmee wahrgenommen?“ 65% vs. topfi (topf Kollekten) 20%
PR value bei 2 Millionen
Die jungen haben es eher wahrgenommen
“Eurovision Song Contest” 2013
§ Client: Salvation Army
§ Awareness Campaign
§ Description: To create awareness of the Salvation Army, a song was composed with a hit
factory Hitmill, and Salvation Army was sent to compete with it in the Eurovision song
contest
§ Result: The band won the national votes and was sent to represent Switzerland in Eurovision Song contest in Malmö, Sweden. They were 13th on the semifinal with 41 points. This was the PR Stunt of the year 2013, as the Salvation Army made it to the Eurovision, producing news headlines through months!
§ http://spinas-cv.com/project/heilsarmee-eurovision/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_and_Me_(Takasa_song)
Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKbzOIab0yM
Promotional value: Permission to mention the client on agency’s own marketing materials, to publish a case study, join an industry competition, publishing a recommendation
Micromanagement = Master/Slave relationship
Topics are identified aching points in collaboration between Greenpeace and an creative agency. Why would these topics be the problematic ones? Any guesses?
Briefing documents and curse of knowledge Briefing documents tend to be just that - a plural. Greenpeace suffers from a curse of knowledge, easily sending the agency several dozens pages of clarifications with links to several hundred pages long documents like reports, followed up by follow-up emails linking to further news stories. Reading all these would blow up the campaign budget before the ad agency gets from the research phase into the creative phase, and might propably educate the reader to the level of a greenpeace campaigner. Agencies tend to rewrite an own internal briefing document after receiving Greenpeace‘s, to brief the creatives.
Timeline and the eternal hurry Agencies work at a much slower pace than Greenpeace, handling other clients and projects simultaneously and prioritizing differently from Greenpeace. Greenpeace often approaches an agency at the last minute and requires urgent attention over other on-going projects. GP rarely reserves time to evaluate the success of the project after the campaign or for building lasting relationships with the collaborating agency.
Meetings and decision-making Greenpeace tends to invite an impressive crowd of internal people in meetings with external partners, but yet fail to bring everyone involved in the decision-making, and often the decision-maker him/herself is missing. Mutual meetings tend to last long and the decisions are made elsewhere. Agencies tend to suffer from not understanding the GP hierarchies or lack of them, and might fail in keeping the meetings efficient. Meetings should be attended not just by people who can say no, but people who can says Yes.
Budgeting in a blackboxThe main problem with budgets isn‘t that they are comparatively small – which they are – but how they are allocated. The agency tends to make a creative proposal that includes the concept, the strategy to implement it, and designs for every feasible channel, like a campaign website, hashtag, social media content ect. Greenpeace tends to receive this information with a thank you – and an announcement, that „we will do it ourselves“, failing to communicate in the briefing stage which (human) resources they have at their disposal and what is expected from the agency, resulting into extra billable hours (when the agency works unnecessarily on layouts, for example). The remaining budget and its use might remain a blackbox for the agency, who will struggle to make an evaluation of the campaign success, not knowing how much was invested in spreading the campaign. Agencies give non-profits discounts and they want to use the goodwill in case studies and even competitions – which is impossible without knowledge of other investments and efforts to promote the campaign.
Our recommendations:
Agencies exist for a singular purpose: to solve specific problems their clients are facing. Define the problem in your brief. Measuring success:
Have a well-thought-out vision on what the campaign wants to achieve – not just the specific marketing campaign, but the overall campaign.
Be crystal clear about the assignment. KPIs - Setting Realistic And Measurable Goals. Define what success means. Let your agency know how many new leads or conversions or impressions you’re shooting for. Provide benchmarks and key learnings from previous efforts, and establish how you’ll track goals to ensure you’re all on the same page.Not essential:
Remember the “Curse of knowledge”. Provide necessary resources only, like your brand guidelines, list of your internal vocabulary (lingo), insight to your audience and previous creative of the campaign, when you’d like to stay on the same course.
Essential:
Timing / on air date
Briefing document template from the agency
Include the budget
Target groups
CI / International CI
Benchmarks / results from previous campaigns
CTA
Language versions needed
Image data base
How is the briefing delivered to an agency:
- Brief document written – using an agency-provided template if the GP‘s own is considered inadequate or too extensive- Presented in person in a meeting
Consider enough time for feedback rounds
Bigger campaigns (some months advance time), smaller (one month)
Reporting (daily for online projects, not possible for offline stuff)
post test for offlien projects
Feedback after concept presentation, after design and content creation, and a final round for approval
Take into consideration time needed for language versions
Meeting length:
Not longer than 2 hours (meeting)
Meetings with the agency:
1 Briefing meeting
2 Budget meeting
3 Agency Organizes a kickoff.
4 Creative meeting (presenting the ideas)
5 Schedule visits to stay up to day both ways. Status meeting weekly, between 1 Project manager from agency and Greenpeace side.
6 debriefing meeting. Arrange an evaluation meeting. You could also give the agency a formal review and have them give one on you
+ USP Spinas: shoulder view (preview of the creative ideas, if the agency is on the right way)
Decision-making
While you may not be able to respond promptly to every email you receive, responding within a few business days is ideal.
Make sure to identify who is responsible for making final decisions and who is accountable for implementing the agreed-upon strategy.
To add clarity, one person needs to be accountable. When fracturing takes place, the agency is often forced to `follow the loudest gun.
People involved in the key decision making process need to be those who can say `yes’ and not just `no.
Giving feedback
- Give feedback in a written document, that has been collected internally at GP, summarised and edited not to have conflicting opinions, and approved by the decision-maker.
- Give descriptive, direct feedback. Marketing managers tend to provide prescriptive feedback (i.e., do this, not that) instead of descriptive feedback that explains why things do or don’t work. Be sure to always dig deep: try to find the why behind your feedback, and be direct in how you communicate.
- Include positive feedback in addition to negative, you’ll create an environment of constructive criticism.
How is the meeting documented?
- Create a Meeting Agenda. Start with a simple agenda to make sure everyone knows what to expect out of the meeting.
- Write a Protocol (notes)
Roles present in a meeting:
GP: GP Decision-maker (Campaigner?) PM GP, PM Agency + Agency creatives in Briefing and Presentation
Decision-making:
1 Decision-maker
Alternative way of presenting your work: Draw a meeting table from the air, and add seats of participants around the table. Name the participant roles and an point out the decision-maker.
How much is an idea worth:
Invest in creative ideas, get media budget for free (Freespace for ads)
GP communicates the budget and the agency presents what they can do with that
How much price reduction?
For example Spinas prices are 1/3 below industry players, and the salaries of staff are to the scale.
Collaborators should offer a lowered price for NGOs
Procentual division of budget
Rule of thumb 15-20% of the budget to a creative agency
Is vat included?
Which makes most sense to you – paying an agency a flat fee or an hourly rate?
Hourly rate is transparent and fair for the agency and the customer, when the spend is reported regularly
Flat fee is good for knowing the exact amount of budget that‘s available, with no suprises
Feedback rounds
Every feedback round that causes any changes, adds costs. If a change isn‘t absolutely necessary, the rule of thumb is, that do not create extra work.
4. Be sure that feedback rounds are included once for the first creative meeting (presenting the ideas), approving desing, approving content and approving the final product.
Visualisation: Play money. Give the participants a stack of post-its, that resemble money, and ask them to allocate this budget to creative campaigning with an agency, to invest in advertising, organizing a public event and an action.
A lack of strategy is akin to not having boundaries, borders, and curfews for kids---all hell can and often does break loose.