From client servicing to brand servicing

"Client servicing" has been part of agency vocabulary for as long as I can remember. But perhaps it is time we questioned what those words have come to mean.

To be clear, I am not talking about the client servicing function. I am talking about a mindset that can permeate an agency: our job is to keep the client happy. I think our job is different. Our job is to serve the brand.

The agency-client ecosystem doesn't make this easy. Every few years, the possibility of a pitch hangs like a sword over the relationship. I have heard "you are only as good as your last campaign" far too often. When retaining the business becomes closely associated with keeping the people across the table happy, disagreement, even challenging the client's thinking, starts feeling dangerous.

The client's intention to do what is right for the brand is rarely in question. But clients inevitably see the brand from the inside; one of the agency's most valuable contributions is an outside-in perspective that may occasionally point in a different direction. When that instinct to please takes over, that perspective is the first thing we lose.

But clients need to do some soul-searching too. Do you want a partner or a vendor? A vendor delivers what you ask for. A partner should be prepared to tell you when it believes you are asking for the wrong thing. You cannot ask for strategic partnership and then penalise the agency every time it challenges your thinking. The path to a brilliant campaign will sometimes go through uncomfortable conversations.

There is an uncomfortable contradiction here. Clients cannot procure a vendor and expect a partner. Agencies cannot sell a partnership and deliver a service desk. Perhaps clients get the agencies they deserve. But agencies also get the client relationships they are willing to accept.

That trade off is about to get harder to strike, because the pressure to please is only getting stronger.

The pressure to please is only getting stronger

Clients are in-housing capabilities. Platforms are building direct relationships with advertisers. Specialist providers are taking pieces of the traditional agency remit. And AI is making many agency outputs faster, cheaper and portable outside the agency. Each of these trends, on its own, would be manageable; together, they are reshaping what an agency is for.

These are existential pressures on the traditional agency model. Ironically, they can make the instinct to keep the client happy even stronger. When revenue is under pressure and parts of your scope can move elsewhere, an uncomfortable conversation with a client becomes even harder to have.

But that creates a dangerous vicious circle. The more insecure the agency feels, the more accommodating it becomes. The more accommodating it becomes, the less strategic value it adds. And the less strategic value it adds, the easier it becomes to replace.

Perhaps the safest behaviour in the short term is therefore the most dangerous behaviour in the long term.

So how does an agency break that cycle? By earning the right to challenge.

Challenge has to be earned

This isn't a licence for agencies to disagree for the sake of it. An agency opinion isn't inherently superior to a client opinion. Clients understand their businesses, platforms have deep expertise within their ecosystems, and agencies bring an outside-in perspective across brands, markets and platforms. Each sees the problem through a different lens.

If the client believes one thing, the platform recommends another and the agency proposes a third, it cannot simply become a contest of opinions. What settles it is evidence: a strategy needs measurement built into it from the start, so that when the three views diverge, there is a shared basis for judging which one the data actually supports.

But evidence isn't cheap. Data, technology, analytics and specialist talent cost money. Clients cannot squeeze agency economics while demanding ever greater investment in these capabilities. Equally, agencies don't get a free pass. If strategy and measurement are where their future value lies, they need to prioritise resources there. Both sides have to invest in making the challenge credible.

What this looks like in practice

None of this means much unless it changes what actually happens in the room. The only truth is growth of the brand and hence the focus needs to be on outcomes. Every recommendation needs to pass the test of impact-on-outcomes; supported not by opinions but by data. 

And this journey does not start with the brief. It starts with having a continuous point-of-view on brand challenges, geo-strategy, audience approach - all backed by measurement. An evidence-backed discussion focused on moving brand-metrics is valuable. 

None of this removes the debate or the discomfort. It just makes the interaction productive instead of personal.

From client servicing to brand servicing

Agency output isn't an off-the-shelf product; it is co-created. Clients need to create room for challenge and agencies need to earn the right to challenge. The quality of the debate matters, and it is worth building for rather than leaving to chance.

So perhaps both sides need to answer an uncomfortable question. Clients: do you really want a strategic partner when that partner disagrees with you? Agencies: are you prepared to risk an uncomfortable conversation to do what you believe is right for the brand?

If the objective is to keep the client happy, the safest answer will always be yes. If the objective is to serve the brand, sometimes the agency has to be prepared to say no. The agencies that build the mechanisms to make that "no" credible, rather than just occasionally brave, are the ones that will still be indispensable when the pressure to please is at its highest.

Premjeet Sodhi is Global Analytics Lead at WPP Media, based in New York, where he builds measurement systems connecting media to business outcomes. The article reflects his personal point of view on the subject.