• • Culture Counts
  • Top Ten Client-Agency Secrets
  • Do You Have What It Takes?
  • The Shiny Part
  • Build Teams That Build Brands
  • Shared Service Centers
  • Simple Truths About Talent
  • How to Move Ahead

by Lorraine Stewart Lockhart
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Corporate Culture Is Core

Corporate culture is the strategic lens by which RCG views the subject of advertising agency selection and effective client-agency business relationships. Cultural alignment between teams is the key determinant in the effectiveness of bringing talented people together to build brands. Beyond selecting a resource partner, even understanding and managing differences in the underlying value systems between client organizations and the multiple agencies working with them, is an often overlooked key ingredient to success.

According to the ANA study “Inside Advertiser and Agency Relationships,” in the initial stage of a new agency—client relationship, strategy issues tend to carry the weight on importance and effectiveness; by the transitional and established stages of the relationship, people-oriented issues, process issues and service quality issues consume the majority of attention unnecessarily. This risks undermining the relationship, often leading to its demise. Agencies mistakenly change personnel in attempt to solve the problem, rotating people in and out, hoping to find the right combination of talent with whom the client team will relate and work well.

Dysfunction in teams negatively impacts the ability to produce highly effective and results-oriented work. The rework required to get the job done often carries a big price tag—financial and emotional. The value proposition wanes. People wonder what went wrong.

A Better Way

For almost twenty years, RCG has evaluated the cultures of clients and agencies through our proprietary tool called CultureScans® Profile designed to help organizations articulate and rank order the value of 54 value attributes. We provide a holisitc view of the teaming model that should be created.  Our comprehensive database is often used to understand an individual agency's culture against a broader cultural picture and it is used to help clients understand themselves better.

Imagine knowing how a client team or agency department thinks about cultural attributes like innovation, risk taking, analytical thinking, willingness to experiment to name a few of the 54 we measure.

By seeking to understand your core values – either during a search for a new agency or in an existing partnership – means that you can ultimately build a relationship that works and develop a partnership that excels.

We call it the sociology of teaming.