Abstract

There is a widely believed tradition that good or high-quality agency–client relationships make for superior advertising campaigns, with many scholars highlighting the benefits agency professionals bring to the advertising creative development process. However, not all agree, and some scholars point to a “dark side” of apparently good relationships—an alternative tradition that is based on agency theory. This approach suggests agencies can take advantage of clients who are highly committed. Our research focuses on the agency perspective to this question and collects data on 518 campaigns from London and Amsterdam agencies. We show both traditions have merit in that the two processes operate simultaneously. When agencies perceive that the quality of their client relationship is low, the professionalism of agency personnel shines through developing original, strategic, and creative work. But when relationship quality is considered high, dark side problems emerge. However, there is a bright side to good relationships. Creativity theory suggests that a good relationship can increase the intrinsic motivation of agency staff such that their increased passion for the work offsets dark side problems—something for which we find empirical support.

摘要

人们普遍认为，良好或高质量的代理-客户关系可以促成出色的广告活动，许多学者强调代理专业人员为广告创意开发过程带来的好处。然而，并非所有人都同意，一些学者指出了表面上良好关系的“阴暗面”——另一种基于代理理论的传统。这种方法表明代理商可以利用高度忠诚的客户。我们的研究侧重于对这个问题的代理观点，并从伦敦和阿姆斯特丹的代理机构收集了 518 个活动的数据。我们表明这两种传统的优点在于这两个过程同时进行。当代理机构认为他们的客户关系质量低下时，机构人员的专业精神通过开发原创性、战略性和创造性的工作而大放异彩。但是，当认为关系质量很高时，就会出现阴暗面问题。然而，良好的人际关系也有光明的一面。创造力理论表明，良好的关系可以增加机构工作人员的内在动力，从而使他们对工作的热情增加抵消了阴暗面的问题——我们找到了经验支持这一点。