What makes multinational brands go to an agency for help?
AdNews sat down with entrepreneur Janine Allis, the founder of Boost Juice and part-owner of Retail Zoo, at The Entourage’s 'Make It Happen' summit to pick her brain on why Boost Juice doesn't have a dedicated advertising agency.
“I've used various agencies in my time, but I find it's really hard to find the right balance,” Allis said.
“When an agency pitches they give three concepts.
“They show the one they don't want to give you first, and then show you the one they do want you to have at the end. And then they talk about the ‘vision’ of how they got here.
“But I sit there and go, you've got it wrong.
“The reason you've got it wrong is unless you are going to go to every single consumer that sees his ad and explain your vision of getting there, you’ve failed.
“I’ve lost count at the number of times I’ve watched a TVC or heard an ad and asked myself what's the message here? I just don’t get it.
“Most of the time I think you've lost your idea. It's gone into that creativity vortex or you've had so many people in the idea that the final result has become a grey message that actually doesn't deliver anything.
“They fail because they don't think about a brand 24/7.”
Even though the marketing industry has changed so much since Boost Juice’s foundation in 2022, Allis said even if she were to restart the brand today she wouldn't use agencies any more than currently.
Allis said: “I was just a control freak and I wanted the marketing team to think about our brand all the time. And because my husband and I were so strong in marketing with such a strong vision, we truly believe that we could lead an in-house team to do that.
“The reason being is that you have got to get the right people, it takes a long time to get a CMO or the right marketing person.
“I'm not against ad agencies at all, I worked for one so I understand how they work and their talent is incredible.
“As a business owner I’m trying to find the talent in the agencies, not the agencies themselves to understand the brand.
“Although we haven't used agencies a lot, some of our best ideas have come from agencies.
“And we don't care where the ideas come from, whether it's a top agency, or younger agencies.
“As long as we get great ideas we can amplify them, because we understand our brand so well and we know how to communicate it.
“In the future, if I was going to an agency, I would have a specific problem I needed to solve.
“So I might say I feel like the business isn't going in the right direction and we need to pivot it.
“For example, Kmart used to be a pretty old and tired brand. If I was them I would ask an agency to take the brand into a new era.
“Bonds was also a daggy brand and an agency [Special Australia] came and reinvigorated it.
“Dumb ways to die [devised by advertising agency McCann Melbourne] is probably one of the most amazing campaigns I've ever heard about.
“Metro Trains went to an agency and ask all these people are dying, so how do we do a safety message?
“So when there are problems that need to be solved, I would go with an agency.”
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