Embracing Change: Why We’re Productizing at North
At North, we recognize the advertising landscape is shifting. Clients are increasingly moving away from traditional “agency of record” (AOR) relationships, preferring project-based work instead. While many agencies find this shift challenging, with nearly 70% struggling to adapt (source: 4As), we see it as an opportunity to live up to our mantra: “Real is beautiful.”
Instead of denying reality, we are embracing it. It’s why we’re proactively productizing our offerings—turning our services into clearly defined “products” that meet clients’ specific needs without long-term commitments.
Rethinking Staff Management
In this productized world, we’re reimagining how we staff our agency. We’re focusing on a leaner core team while expanding our network of external freelance resources who are “at the ready” when needed, but only when needed. This approach allows us to be agile and responsive without the overhead of maintaining a large full-time staff. We can manage resources more effectively and ensure that we always have the right talent for every project.
And most importantly, our leaner core team is tier-one talent, loaded with multi-disciplinary experience and all the “Northness” that drives great work.
The Hours Are Ours
There’s something empowering about productizing our services. We isolate the service, we put a fair price on its delivery, and then publish it. Clients can then take it or leave it. And if they take it, it’s up to us then to deliver the highest quality work profitably.
The traditional “staff time” model creates an inherent push-pull between agency & client and distracts from the work. Both the agency and the client are watching the clock & worried about losing money (agency) or spending more (client).
Productization changes all of that because there’s a proposed price, the client agrees to that price, and then the hours are ours to manage from there.
What’s most fun, however, is compiling the products.
The List Of Products Can Be A Reflection Of The Agency’s Soul
We’re offering the typical services like brand ideas (we love those), advertising campaigns, and media plans, but we see productization as an opportunity to offer less-expected products that communicate who North is, like deep down.
For example, we’re leveraging our unique musical expertise under the banner “Vibrational Branding.” Our Chief Creative Officer, Mark Ray, is not just a creative leader—he’s also a recording artist with his band Camerado. Several other North team members are accomplished musicians as well.
Music is a key ingredient to a brand’s impression in the world, so we’re productizing this skill set by offering clients access to a curated library of independent artists’ work, along with original compositions tailored for brands. This unique offering allows us to bring a distinct, resonant sound to our clients’ branding efforts.
And coming soon we’ll be offering idea projects through a unique service called IX Embedded from Ideasicle X. This web application will allow us to create a virtual, North-branded “idea portal” from which we can run idea projects for clients. Sometimes clients just need a spark of a great idea–a name for a product, a promotional hook for a retail drive period, new features of a mobile app, etc. We will even be able to invite clients to observe these idea projects in realtime. We haven’t figured out pricing yet, but we do know we’ll be the first agency on the planet to beta test this service in the coming months.
More to come on that and other experimental product opportunities.
Stronger Agency Relationships
One might conclude that the death of the “agency of record relationship” means that client relationships are dead, too. Not at all. In our experience so far, product work leads to even stronger relationships. We find our people are always fresh with each new assignment, constantly on their toes, always trying to do their best work, with the motivation of earning that next project.
And you know what? Clients tend to be on their best behavior when it’s project work. Maybe it’s that the politics of long-term relationships don’t get in the way. Or maybe the freshness of a new agency team injecting new energy into their brands on that project. Not sure. But everyone just seems…happier.
And that’s got to be a healthy state for maximum creativity.
