[Today's posting is from Laura Schmidt of R+K's PR practice]
So Google and Procter & Gamble announced last week that they’ve been swapping staff to better understand the advertising market. While reading the coverage (
here for Wall Street Journal article online), I noticed most of it focused on the partnership’s long-term goal of superior online strategies for both companies.
Around the water cooler at R+K, however, talk of this unlikely union is about the partnership itself. It’s reminded us of how beneficial it is when clients see us as their integrated marketing partner versus just a vendor.
I mean, could a ‘Googler’ or ‘Proctoid’ completely grasp the other’s know-how—and develop plans to benefit from it—without overcoming (or, perhaps at times, overlooking) personality and cultural differences?
True partners get close enough to one another to understand the entirety of the business and its marketing opportunities more fully...not something many vendors get to do. Maybe that’s a key take away from this exchange…something to noodle.
Yes, “clicking” with your marketing agency is important, but maybe you click when you approach the relationship with your marketing agency as a true I’ll-scratch-your-back-if-you-scratch-mine partnership that requires trust, transparency and a common goal of marketing success.