IC07: Client Perspective on Building Client-Agency Relationship by Tomasz Kazmierski (McDonald's)

• He has never answered a cold email he received from an agency.
• He gets connected to new agencies through trusted contacts; there is always some kind of link.
• In a given year, McDonald's works with 10-20 different agencies.
• He cares about the methodology used for research, but his stakeholders only care about the outputs of the research.
• To them, anyone who supplies any type of work is an agency, even if you don't consider yourself to be one.
• The soft skills needed for an agency or client insights role are the same, but the technical ones are quite different.
• The most important factor for an agency to be successful is to try to understand client problems and their broader context.
• It's really difficult to onboard new agencies. This process can sometimes prevent trying new agencies/methods, etc.
• "We probably have an answer to every question, but it's hard to get to it."
• Writing a good brief is actually much harder than you think it is.
• The two most important things to build a client-agency relationship are trust and managing expectations.
• Research is as good as the clarity of the brief.
• Internal engagement is particularly hard, and you need to spend a lot of time internally understanding your stakeholders' problems.
• When choosing an agency, you are also putting your reputation at stake, as their work will represent you as well.
• Agencies sometimes focus too much on the approach, that they forget the outcome.
• In research focus 80% on the outcome, 20% on the approach.
• In one week, he gets on average 15 new agencies trying to pitch.
• People insights is one of the fastest-growing insights areas.
• Not delivering on the agreed deadline is probably the most common mistake made by agencies.
• They have internally defined what kind of research they go to a certain agency for.
• The best agencies create a reputation and content to make a client go to them. 🚶🏼

Check the full recording here 👇🏻