Agencies should always go for the ‘challenger’ client

If an agency wants to get famous and secure the opportunity to produce great work in a win-win scenario, then there is a very particular client that many would never touch with a bargepole – but for the right agency it’s a gift horse not to be spurned says Dominic Mills

So, you’re an agency new-business director and pickings have been slim recently. You read that an interesting client, currently the challenger in the market, is looking for an agency.

The plan involves an all-or-nothing assault on the market in just under two years’ time. The market leader, stuck in a joint venture with a stroppy partner, has its problems too.

It sounds exciting, but just hours later your would-be day-to-day client resigns, and a row between the chief executive (whose hold on his job is by no means guaranteed) and the organisation’s biggest shareholder might mean that there will be even less money in the kitty to play with.

What should you do? Your agency chief executive is understandably uncomfortable.

When you hear that the client is the Labour Party, the departing client Tom Watson MP, and the row is between Ed Miliband and Unite, maybe you should, as my old friend Stephen Foster says, run for the hills.

He’s wrong. For the right agency it’s a gift horse not to be spurned. Yes, there are downsides: first, there might not be much money (but that’s also a positive – see below); two, and this is something agencies often underestimate, the general election campaign itself will eat up resources like nothing else – which means it might not suit those with existing big, demanding, clients or those that are lumbering bureaucracies.

The best comparison, as told to me by someone who worked on the Labour campaign in 1997, is working for a large retailer simultaneously beset by a price war and a PR scandal. And it goes on for a month (at least).

Then there’s multiple-client syndrome: all the senior party figures have opinions, but whose counts most at any one time will change from day to day. Figuring out who has the power to say ‘yes’ is vital.

Last, there’s all the other crap going on within the party. But hey, political parties are just like any other client, only more so.

That’s the bad stuff? What’s the good?

Let’s start with the money. A small budget isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, it can make agencies more inventive and nimble. Big money can often lead to indecision. In any case, these days, digital media means you don’t necessarily need a big (media) budget to achieve reach or impact.

Next, fame. In terms of generating a currency for your agency, political advertising does it like no other. We all know how the Saatchi brothers turned the fame they generated from working for the Tories to their advantage. Most ads pass most people by; political ads get talked about. Fame gets you out of the trade media and into the national media.

Third, great work. Working for a political party is an unrivalled opportunity to do great advertising. Single-minded, focused, hard-hitting (just like all ads should be, but aren’t). Yes, everyone moans about negative political advertising, but that’s the stuff that gets noticed and has an impact. And that’s why you’re doing it – to get noticed.

Fourth, you’re working for the opposition. Life may not look particularly rosy for the Labour Party now, but 2015 is an eternity away in politics. This is the best place to be – much better than working for the incumbent. They have to defend their record to prove why they should stay in power, which is much harder than showing why they shouldn’t. As the opposition, you have no record to defend.

Five, it’s a win-win for you. That’s because you get a lot of the credit if your client wins, and none of the blame if they lose because they’re too busy indulging in mutual recrimination.

Times paywall: what does success look like?

I used to work with a professional cynic whose standard question to any proposal was: “But what does success look like?” Most of the time it was pretty obvious: loads of money, a reasonable return on investment or annihilation of the competition.

But, as recently installed News UK chief executive Mike Darcey reported last week on the paywall efforts of the Times and Sunday Times, that now seems like a good question. What, for the Times, constitutes success?

I don’t know and nor, judging by the nuanced reaction of the commentariat, do many others. That’s probably because no-one else has a general news model (the FT is not a general news provider) quite like News UK in which everything is behind the wall unlike, say, those who are free or have adopted a metered approach. As the singleton, that makes News UK’s performance hard to judge.

Darcey announced digital subscribers of 140,000 to the Times. If you add up casual print sales, print subs, and digital subs, the Times is ahead in total paying customers compared to when it launched the paywall in 2010, with 536,000 now versus 517,000 then.

He has a reasonable point to make. On the face of it, that doesn’t sound too bad. He’s up a net 29,000 at a time when his competitors are going backwards in terms of paying customers.

The other good news for advertisers is that digital subscribers are spending an average 40 minutes a day with the product – probably longer than with the print.

But many questions remain unanswered. What’s the churn rate? Where do they recruit new subscribers from? What is the cost of subscriber acquisition? Friday’s Times had some amazing deals on offer – £4 for digital-only; £6 for digital, plus 7-day print, plus smartphone, plus Times+; and £8 for all that plus tablet editions. This when the print alone for the seven-day package would cost a casual purchaser £9. Chuck in lots of two-for-one promos on cinema tickets and attractions and the acquisition drive isn’t cheap. And what is the average revenue per user (Arpu) figure?

As Ray Snoddy points out, the Times is moving out of an era in which it was subsidised into one in which it will have to pay its own way.

That makes the pressure to make this work all the greater. However, I can tell you one reason why News UK executives will believe they’re doing it right. Three years ago, Paul Hayes, then commercial director of News International, admitted that, as the author of the paywall plan, it was his neck that was on the block.

Guess what? He’s still there, managing director of the new-look News UK. Proof positive, I’d say.