Why don’t single client agencies work?
Posted: January 12, 2010 Filed under: PR, Worst PR, wpp | Tags: Enfatico 2 CommentsWPP finally gave up on Enfatico, the agency they set up solely to support Dell and have effectively folded it in to C&W. Enfatico joins a long list of single client agencies to fail. Why do these agencies fail when, on the surface at least, they offer such obvious benefits to a client? Before I get in to the reasons why they fail, let me first list the potential benefits of these firms:
1. These agencies can REALLY get to understand a client’s business
2. These agencies are not distracted by other clients or new business
3. These agencies can hire the team that best suits the client’s challenges
4. These agencies can easily run a single methodology across the globe
5. These agencies are easy to measure as there’s only one thing to build the measurement around
So with all these benefits why do they fail? Here are the reasons:
1. Staff who work at agencies don’t want to just work on one client forever so you are bound to get high turnover at all levels
2. One of the key advantages of agencies is that they get to bring fresh perspective and insight BECAUSE they work with multiple clients. In about a year sole client agencies become stale
3. Sole client agencies are essentially just an in-house team that has been outsourced. Why bother?
4. Sole client agencies only work if the budgets are huge. Otherwise you have staff on the account that are either underutilized or are forced to work on tasks they’re not ideally suited to, to fill their time.
I think it’s a shame these agencies don’t work as I can see the appeal and like to see innovation in our industry. So far though the cons always seem to outway the pros. Enfatico RIP.
Microsoft, Dell and HP lag while Apple again tops the chart in tech PR
Posted: October 1, 2008 Filed under: Best PR, Worst PR 5 CommentsIn my recent poll asking who does the worst PR Microsoft got the most votes, closely followed by Dell and HP. Google and IBM fared well but as with my poll on who does the best PR, Apple came out top by receiving no votes. I think this reflects the feeling by many practitioners that Microsoft is something of a PR machine and that it is struggling to throw off its image as a lagging tech brand when compared with the likes of Apple and Google. Equally the HP brand has lost much of its charm now that Mark Hurd (its CEO) has shown that his mantra is all about driving the finances of the business and less about making HP a leader. Dell meanwhile continues to struggle to find a meaningful niche beyond being a place people buy cheap PCs and servers. In short I think the poll reflects the fact that people admire large successful brands BUT they want a certain visible level of positive leadership. This is where Apple and Google clearly score well. Put another way, the measure of who does the worst PR is really no different to who does the best.