As a former “bouncer” at a gigantic CPG… I contend that one key driver of this “price as differentiator” approach is because the clients see massive over-supplier of undifferentiated alternatives. In a homogenous market – price IS the differentiator. I have interacted with more than 600 agencies… and I have found that fewer than 12 of them truly set themselves apart from the the rest. And these firms have the luxury of setting the terms by which THEY want to do business… not their clients.

Net, while there is much for clients to do to improve their screening, selection, on-boarding, and compensation processes… (in my opinion – and experience) this all starts with the agencies. They are paid to differentiate client brands – but are terrible at doing the same for themselves. Their magical, “proven”, and proprietary processes are NOT used on themselves. And they refuse to make ANY choices about their “brand”. Oh, sorry… the great agencies (and the healthy ones) do make choices.

Great dialogue.

Sadly what you say is true a lot of the time. It comes down to cost, especially in the current economy.

I have been trained to ask “is this going to come down to price? Is that your #1 requirement?” They usually say no, and at the end of the day, they select on price.

1. We’ll work with anyone who pays us.
2. Most of the work we do isn’t award winning, it simply answers the brief and deliveres real value to our client’s business.

True – but not a pitch winning approach.

Most decent agencies offer a pretty similar service. The major problem is clients deciding to go with the “safe option” at pitch – and that’s not the agency that differentiated itself from the crowd, it’s the one that ticked all the cliche boxes in the original post.