HOW TO RUN A MARKETING PARTNER REVIEW

I’ve been exposed to the full spectrum of review processes over the years, from sticking-needles-in-your-eyes to OMG-what-a-wonderful-relationship-that-would-be. Here’s what I believe works best for all parties.

Keep your list of participants as small as possible. A short list of three is ideal. If you can, avoid the formal long-list step. Unless you are the government (and have no choice) or plan to do nothing other than run the review process for three months, never publicly advertise a pitch for your business.
Skipping the long-list step usually means you need to rely on references from people who directly know or have worked with your short-list agencies, which is always the best type of general reference anyway.
Request that the credentials part of the formal pitch meeting be very short – 10 minutes at the most. Agency credentials presentations tend to be more about sizzle and creative awards than business results. They do serve to prove that the agency can actually do great creative, assuming the same creative people are in place, which is more relevant than asking agencies to come up with creative for your company when they’ve just met you. Make sure you hold the presenters’ feet to the fire on business results of any past creative you are exposed to.
Have your short-list agencies sign a Non-Disclosure/Confidentiality Agreement so you can share real information about your company.
Make the pitch about the agency’s response to a real business/marketing issue you are facing. There must be a reason you are putting your company through this process. That real business issue should be presented exactly the same way to all participants through a formal brief. What you should be looking for is strategic thinking on marketing, media, creative, or a combination of these if you are looking for a partner to manage your brand or be truly full-service.
You should always provide a budget or budget levels as this forces discipline upon the agency. Real business issues always have a budget, or a need for a positive benefit/cost outcome. Acknowledging that if you provide a budget, the agency will always spend it, at least you will be presented ideas that are within the realm of fiscal reality. This is a key reason that speculative creative presented in a pitch meeting (without a budget) is rarely the creative that ends up seeing the light of day.
If you want speculative creative, be prepared to pay something for it. As mentioned above, proving creative ability is best done at the credentials stage. Another key reason that pitch creative is rarely what you go forward with is that even a great agency can rarely get your entire business and your industry as well as you do in two short weeks. Otherwise would suggest they are much smarter than you are about your business.

A request for speculative creative favours the big (bigger = higher cost structure = more expensive to work with long term) and the not-currently-busy competitors (there’s usually a reason why). Paying for speculative creative, even below regular rates, also keeps you out of trouble in the event you actually go with a creative idea that bears even slight resemblance to one pitched by a losing agency.

Don’t rush the development process between briefing and presentation. A busy agency needs two to three weeks to do strategic thinking for a new client properly.
Think of this process as speed-dating. You are about to enter into a very important and hopefully long-term relationship based on knowing the other party for just a few weeks. Watch how your courting bachelors & bachelorettes conduct themselves at every step of the review process. Continuing the analogy, how your charming suitors behave in the pitch process is the best they will ever be.

A key part of the process is asking the right questions. Some clients believe that in the interest of pitch integrity, anything shared with any one agency must be shared with all pitch participants. As long as the initial brief is thorough and consistent, pitch participants should reap the benefit of asking the right questions, and the client should consider this part of what they are looking for in a partner.