Abstract

Collaborative co-creation of advertising campaigns by agencies and clients is widely perceived to result in greater creativity and higher-quality advertising outcomes. This research examines three levels of collaboration in client–agency relationships. Environmental-level effects were found in that clients often had difficulty ceding control and trusting an outside agency. Yet when agencies are viewed as experts, clients come to trust them and better creative work results. At the dyadic level, the depth of information sharing between the agency and client was helpful. In stable client–agency relationships, client involvement need not be as extensive because the agency already understands the strategy. Interorganizational effects were also explored, but a surprise finding was an unexpected inverted U-shaped relationship between agency competency and effectiveness. Only at a moderate level of agency competency is the most effective advertising observed, which is indicative of a “dark side” of client–agency relationships. This study was based on qualitative interviews with 20 marketing clients and agency professionals from Australia and New Zealand. Quantitative results were based on 162 campaigns from the same region reported on by 60 brand managers.

摘要

人们普遍认为，代理机构和客户合作共同创造广告活动会带来更大的创造力和更高质量的广告成果。本研究考察了客户-机构关系中的三个合作层次。环境层面的影响被发现，客户通常难以放弃控制权和信任外部机构。然而，当代理机构被视为专家时，客户就会信任他们并获得更好的创造性工作成果。在二元层面，机构和客户之间的信息共享深度很有帮助。在稳定的客户-代理关系中，客户的参与不需要那么广泛，因为代理已经了解策略。还探讨了组织间效应，但令人惊讶的发现是机构能力和有效性之间出乎意料的倒 U 型关系。只有在中等水平的代理能力下才能观察到最有效的广告，这表明客户与代理关系的“阴暗面”。本研究基于对来自澳大利亚和新西兰的 20 位营销客户和代理专业人士的定性访谈。定量结果基于 60 位品牌经理报告的来自同一地区的 162 项活动。