Marketing is an extension of sales and just as there’s any number of ways to sell a product, there’s even more ways to market it. To combat this there’s all sorts of agencies, catering for various niches and channels. A large proportion of them would describe themselves as a “creative” agency.
Creative agencies exist to find creative ways to market and sell things – to find creative solutions to a business or marketing problem that a company can’t solve (or at least, not in the same way) on its own, due to its internal structure, culture or financial and performance pressures. That’s where we, as creative agencies, add value to a client’s business. After all, our business is creativity.
But how do we sell our own creativity? Creative isn’t a one-size-fits-all thing; it’s different by challenge. Packaging creativity may well benefit us as agencies, giving us an exportable product that we can sell, but is it giving clients the best?
For our agency, Ralph, creativity is natural. It’s apparent in our work with clients, however (just as important) it extends to everything we do. It’s what has led us to go the extra mile for our ideas – like create Tinkershrimp & Dutch, a cartoon series, despite being an ad agency.
It’s our creative approach to sales that saw the cartoon series commissioned by Nickelodeon. It’s our love of creating things that led us to actually making it. It’s our understanding of audiences and what they like that ensure we can entertain them. And it’s our understanding of the press that means we can get people to write about it.
Creativity is about having great ideas – ones that are different and make a difference, but you’ve also got to make them happen.
That’s the value of a truly creative agency.
Tom Winbow is business development director at Ralph
This advertisement feature is paid for by the Marketing Agencies Association, which supports the Guardian Media & Tech Network’s Agencies hub.
