From projects to products: The fundamental importance of insight

As agencies face relentless margin erosion, the industry is buzzing with discussions about the shift towards ‘productisation’. Iris’ Global Chief Strategy Officer Chris Whitson explores how this shift impacts strategists' ability to deliver insight-driven opportunities for clients and proposes innovative solutions to navigate this new landscape.

Apart from AI, the most important conversations happening around the industry right now all seem to revolve around the march towards ‘productisation’. As agencies continue to suffer consistent margin erosion, it is clear that the ‘time and materials’ model is obsolete. It worked, we are told, when agencies enjoyed long-term retainers with their clients and could ensure they included enough margin to be able to keep their talent focussed on their clients and still ensure they ran a profitable business. But those days are gone.

And, indeed, gone they are, but the question that’s been bugging me recently is what impact has that had on agency strategists’ ability to create insight-driven opportunities for clients?

I look at the names and descriptions of a lot of the products agencies are creating to adapt to the new business model and think, isn’t that just what your strategist should be doing on your behalf? All the time? Except they can’t because they are all assigned on a project basis and, to make the maths work, agencies need to ensure they are fully chargeable and will move them from project to project to achieve this. Without a retainer, there is no remuneration vehicle to allow them to immerse consistently into a client’s business and the worlds of its customers.

When I first started as a junior strategist, the message was pretty clear: “you add value by being ‘in’ your client’s business not just ‘on’ it”. “You work hard between the briefs by being fully immersed and ready to respond to the attitudes and behaviour of the people your client wants to attract”. As a strategist, it was (and still is) crucial you knew exactly how your client made money; being ‘in’ their business meant knowing the commercials and ensuring anything you propose was in service of them.

I was encouraged to be in the field: sitting in coffee shops, talking to people, being in the car showroom or shopping aisle – that is where you truly unearthed the insight that would make your work better, more relevant and more successful and in so doing, spot the opportunities that would drive commercial success.

Now I confess, this was LONG before the days of social media. Today, strategists can tap into communities, engage in conversations, and eavesdrop on others, all without lifting their eyes from their laptop. Social listening is a very powerful tool, but it is not the answer in totality.

In our recent work for Samsung, we were asked to explore the passion points and communities of a younger, Gen Z audience and look for opportunities where Samsung could authentically play a role. By utilising the multiple (and brilliant) online tools at our disposal, the team built a pretty deep understanding of the UK skating community and how Samsung products could naturally be part of it.

But what made the project really powerful, what ensured we genuinely could connect with the skating community in a way they would welcome, was a piece of work we called ‘Skate of the Nation’. To create it we sent our strategists to skate parks the length and breadth of the country with our in-house film makers and content creators for company. On their journey, they met many of the diverse and wonderful people for whom skating and the community that surrounds it is a way of life. They brought back a truly insightful film shining a light on the skating community in a way no amount of online research alone could muster.

This is something we know every client would benefit from enormously and, in the spirit of joining the ‘productisation revolution’, we have developed it as a standalone product where we bring together insight generation, creatively produced ethnography and a suite of activation ideas a client could implement straight away. We hope it helps our clients navigate the complex blend of social and real-life community that is the hallmark of their customers’ daily lives.

But to return to the question I posed at the beginning of this piece, has the short-term project-focussed approach to agency engagement had a detrimental impact on the ability of strategists to add consistent value and real insight? 

Yes, absolutely, and to fill the gap left behind, we’re creating products to deliver it. 

This perhaps isn’t a bad thing. It challenges us as agencies to ensure everything we do is valuable to our clients. It forces rigour and considered application but let’s not pretend we’re revolutionising the service we provide. 

The reality is the best agencies, and the best strategists will still consistently look for insight and the next opportunity. Now it manifests itself in the proactive brief and the hope a client will pay for it if they like it, which does rather put the risk (and the cost) on the agency.

So my ask is this. If you’re a client and you want to know you’ve got someone clever consistently focussed on you and your customers, perhaps find a way to free up a small ongoing amount of money for strategy, even if that’s as far as the retainer conversation goes. I promise you won’t regret it and I promise you will have strategists always putting your briefs to the top of the pile.