Forming Community Among Competition

One advantage to working with clients who utilize multiple agency partners is the opportunity to share. Not only do you share work and responsibilities, but the opportunity exists to share knowledge.

Okay, when it comes to sharing the work, particularly the money we’re paid for it, some would beg to differ, but it’s my blog, so pfpfpfpfpt (that sound when you stick your tongue out and blow)!

Last Friday I spent a day-long idea session with 12 other agency partner representatives and six folks from our client’s marketing/management team. We were brainstorming for a segment of the client’s marketing work next year. While each of us have specific agreements to handle a certain delineation of work, the type and amount of work we’ll be asked to perform depends upon the direction of the ideas (i.e. – Social media ideas might fall in my agency’s lap, while another agency that handles the client’s primary PR tasks will get a larger share if the ideas lean toward that discipline.)

Still, six agencies who often compete against one another for business, and can even influence how much business the next year’s worth of work for said client will bring, came together for six or so hours of valuable work Friday. Being new to this particular client and group, I was impressed at the absence of territory and toe-stepping. And learning from this collection of marketing minds I consider an honor.

So a tip of the cap to colleagues from Energy BBDO (Nicole Torrillo and Ryan Wilson), GMR Marketing (Tamera Green, Greg Busch), Ketchum (Corinne Gudovic and Patrick Smith), Moxie Interactive (Shannon Schmidt), Wirestone (Nick Andersen and Michelle Findlay), Zenith Media (Paul Dalton) and Zipatoni (Claire Elias and Steve Klink). We’ll continue to work together on behalf of one heck of a client (Beam Global) and I’m not alone in looking forward to it.

And what would a blog be without a gratuitous link? My Wirestone colleagues Nick and Michelle turned me onto their boss’s blog (at least I think he’s their boss). Paul Marobella’s entertaining look at marketing and more can be found at http://www.brandsoapbox.typepad.com/. His latest rant about IKEA is mighty fun and raises interesting questions about the home furnishings retail giant.

IMAGE: “handshake I” by oooh.oooh on Flickr.

Related Articles of Interest:

1. The Holy Crap Reaction To Competition from The Instigator Blog
2. 12 Views To A Brand from Conversation Agent
3. Analyze Your Blog’s Competition from ProBlogger
4. How The New Sausage Is Made, Part 1: Newspapers and Bloggers Working Together by Josh Hallett
5.  Competitive Intelligence – Search Insider Summit from Lee Oden and the Online Marketing Blog.

 [tags]advertising, marketing, competition, communications, cooperation, synergy[/tags]