Balancing innovation with the need for results
A lot of the talk at today’s Caples Jam, hosted by DMNews, centered around how to find the balance between innovation and producing results, making for some lively conversation among attendees from the client and agency sides.
Two of the day’s featured speakers beautifully summed up two recurring themes. “These are wonderfully adventurous times – who dares wins,” said Duncan Gray, ECD at Proximity London, during a panel discussion. Later in the day, Kevin Joyce, VP, sales and marketing, digital printing solutions, at Kodak, however, had this to say: “It’s all about the return on investment.”
There was a lot talk about the importance of working with clients who are willing to think outside the box. Several pointed to Barbara Goodstein, CIO and EVP at AXA Equitable, who gave a presentation on her company’s marketing efforts built around “the 800-lb. gorilla in the room,” as a great client to have because of her openness to new ideas and her willingness to go to bat for the agency within her company.
In a roundtable discussion titled Risk-taking vs. Results, attendees discussed how to mitigate risks by designating a portion of the budget for riskier ventures, whether it’s 20% or some other figure that is more agreeable to a client.
