Starting to work with your creative agency
Once a creative agency has been selected for your campaign and they have accepted, work in partnership with them to refine their proposal and SOW. A kick-off meeting gives you and the creative agency a chance to discuss the feedback shared with the award letter and for the agency to ask clarifying questions before they submit a revised proposal. Work together to finalise the SOW before formalising a contract.
The kick-off meeting goals include:
- Answering questions based on the feedback your team provided on the agency’s proposal and creative pitch presentation.
- Discussing the proposed SOW and deliverables.
- Defining the working relationship between your team and the creative agency.
- Discussing the model of payment for the creative agency - although this is unlikely to be finalised in this meeting. Once the SOW is finalised, your teams will need to revisit and finalise the payment schedule.
It is not unusual to go back and forth with the agency a number of times to refine and finalise the proposal.
Finalise the Scope of Work (SOW)
The scope of the campaign and creative agency deliverables may have changed during the creative agency recruitment process. Even if your goals remain the same; deliverables and timelines may need to be adjusted and negotiated with the creative agency before contracting can move forward. The finalised SOW should present a clear list of expectations of what the creative agency will provide as part of their services, including a final list of deliverables.
A vital part of the final SOW is determining who will take the lead on managing timelines and deliverables. The programme manager will often manage these elements, though in some cases, the creative agency will lead.
The team managing timelines and deliverables should be responsible for the following:
- A clear draft of the programme plan with milestones and key deliverables based on the content of the SOW.
- Establishing and managing a regular meeting schedule, often weekly or every two weeks, for updates on progress. The leading team will send in advance meeting agendas and will follow up with notes afterwards to capture follow-up needs.
Objective: Work with the creative agency to review and finalise details and planned deliverables, as part of the SOW presented in the RFP Package.
Formalise the contract with the creative agency
Most organisations have an established contracting process that establishes a legal framework for how they work with other organisations. The sample contract can be adapted to your programme and added to your organisational contract, supporting your work with a creative agency.
Finalise the budget and plan the creative agency payment schedule
It is likely that you are working with a set budget, as highlighted in the RFP. Once the final SOW is complete, finalise your budget and assess it against the workload for the agency.
Revisit your budget with the final SOW to answer the following questions:
- Is the SOW achievable for the budget allocated for this programme? Will it fairly compensate the agency for the quantity of work required to deliver the programme?
- What is the highest budget you are prepared or authorized to approve when negotiating with the creative agency?
- Does the budget align with the agency’s financial proposal? How much is the discrepancy, if any, and does the final SOW resolve it?
- Are adjustments to the budget or SOW necessary to deliver the campaign your team, the CMT, and the CAC have envisioned?
With a final budget in place, determine how to pay the creative agency. In the financial proposal submitted in response to the RFP, the agency will have outlined how much they would like to be paid and their preferred model of payment.
This resource provides more details about common payment models.
Objective: Your team and the creative agency should discuss and agree on a finalised budget and payment schedule based on the final SOW.
Finalise the programme timeline
Based on the finalised SOW, work with the creative agency to develop a project timeline for the planned deliverables. It should include time for strategic planning, creative development, campaign materials and assets, media production and approvals. It may also include campaign launch and implementation.
Creative development is time consuming. It begins with an approved idea and continues through production and launch. The creative agency will be able to estimate timelines for the deliverables planned for your campaign. However, it is important for your team to have a realistic sense of the timelines you should account for.
Organisational approvals, including sign off from the CMT, can cause lengthy delays that delay a campaign’s launch by weeks or months. To avoid this, approval timelines should be built into the campaign timeline that your team and the creative agency agree on. During critical approval windows, your team and the creative agency should maintain a regularly scheduled meetings with the CMT and any other individuals whose approval is required for the campaign to advance.