Don't just talk about it, do it.

We have won a lot of new business this year: five new clients (And don’t worry, this piece isn’t about how awesome I am. I’ve written one of those posts before). Two wins stand out to me and made me think, “Why we did we win?” Both of those clients moved their business to us even though they acknowledged that their current agencies were doing a good job. They weren’t statutory reviews either. The clients were in market looking for something different; and they chose us.

I often get asked what sets us apart as a media agency. My primary school deputy principal endlessly intoned (frequency works), “Don’t just talk about it, do it” as we stood on the tarmac parade ground in the early morning heat of summer (in the skin cancer capital of the world, what were they thinking?). So I often respond to the question of what makes us different with, “Well, there’s no shortage of smart people in other media agencies. In fact, I reckon the big guys have smarter and more talented people than us. Our difference is that we don’t just talk about doing clever stuff, we actually do it.”

Surely our success can’t be as simple as that? Just getting on with it.

On deeper reflection I think I’ve found something else that makes us appealing to clients. Back in the dark ages of advertising, when digital meant CD-ROM, I worked at DDB. Back then, when we were burning coal like it was 1999 (well, it was actually 1999), we had a media department in house. That media department was one of the best I have worked with (right up there with Bellamy Hayden) and on reflecting why they were so good, I remembered that they were very creative. They often made the ads better and the creative teams often made the media better. Staffed with a mix of media and non-media ad people, and people from outside of the industry entirely, Audience Group has an interesting mix of interesting people who do not think like others I’ve met in today’s media agencies. We are more imaginative.

Over the past three years, we’ve found imaginative ways to generate meaningful data. We’ve made connections between data sets that I’d never thought to make before. We love the challenge of a small budget. We hate doing the same thing, the same way, over and over. Boilerplate solutions or a templated approach to a brief do not excite us. And I think this is why we have won as much new business as we have recently.

Perhaps we need new tag line? Imagination at Speed? Rapidly Inventive? Wankers in Action? Actually, I might leave that last one for our porn CD-ROM production business. It’ll be huge. Oh bugger, this piece is not ending the way I thought it would. I thought it’d end with an inspirational climax. Oh, please, someone stop me from typing any mo