ADWEEK: “AgencyAgile’s ‘Request For Partnership’ offers a different approach.”

(Originally published June 1, 2021 in ADWEEK)

Working with the major medical devices company, Edwards Lifesciences, and a wide variety of marketing agencies, AgencyAgile pioneered a new “Request for Partnership” process that helps clients identify the agencies that will work well with them for the long haul. As Stacia Garner, Director of U.S. Patient Marketing at Edwards Lifesciences, observed, the typical Request for Proposal (RFP) process involving search consultants and spec work beauty contests causes everyone to “focus on the short term and do whatever it takes to get the link made” but “six to nine months later you realize [it doesn’t work]. Agency [reviews] are not cheap endeavors.”

The new approach recognizes that there is often “a massive gap in understanding what makes a relationship work,” both on the client and the agency side. As Garner notes, “Business is won on creative and lost on relationships.” The new process actively explores what it would actually be like to work with the agency and quickly helps clients and agencies “test drive [the relationship] and really get to know [if their ways of working are compatible].”