This week has seen the Portland creative community’s collective hackles raised over the decision by the City to frame the RFP process for a redesign of the portlandonline.com site a contest, with the prize being “credit on the site”, effectively asking the creative professionals of Portland to work for free. And it is offensive. But it’s also nothing new. At the same time this was happening, Zappos was getting raked over the coals for over extending their RFP process and not actually reading any of them. Im sure we all also remember the “revolutionary” RFP tweet from Current a few months ago that went exactly… nowhere.
But then, there as always been a lot of talk within the industry about whether or not the RFP process is any good for agencies. We’ve always been terrific at talking about ourselves (see: this blog) To me though, far too much of the focus has been on what’s good for the agency. The problem, and the problem with the way we as an industry approach a lot of these questions is this: no one cares about what’s good for the the agency.
Acceptance of this simple fact is one of the biggest barriers to us accomplishing any of the fundamental changes that need to happen. The funny thing is, this is EXACTLY the frame of mind we preach to our clients. “Look at things from your customers point of view.” No one should be surprised that framing the debate about RFP’s from an agency point of view doesn’t resonate outside the echo chamber of other agencies. But the fact remains: RFPs are increasing being recognized as a pretty bad tool for getting work done. To this end, I think the best way to get us out of this rut is to reframe the whole argument from why it’s bad for us, to why it’s bad for tour clients.
My belief is that while an RFP is great tool for finding suppliers of commodity products, it’s actually quite a poor tool for finding strategic or creative partners. If you need to order 500 reams of paper, there is a quantifiable cost of these products, and therefore a benchmark from which to establish value of a suppliers proposal. But about when you’re looking for a new logo? Or a new ad campaign? Or new interactive strategy? What is a good price for these? What is the value of a strategy? What is the value of a logo? As an illustration consider:
In 1971 Carolyn Davidson was a graphic design student at Portland State University where Phil Knight was teaching a class on accounting while running his business, Blue Ribbon Sports. Needing a logo for BRS’s new line of athletic shoes, he asked Carolyn, who was freelancing for him, to come up with something. Carolyn charged $2 dollars and hour, and upon the selection of the ‘swoosh’, she submitted her bill for $35.
Fast forward 27 years.
In 2008, Peter Arnell’s agency of the same name is selected by Pepsico to rebrand a number of their products including Tropicana orange juice. Approximately $35 million spent, a 20% dip in sales, and public backlash later, Pepsico announces it will revert back to the original packaging.
The point with this isn’t that a large agency can’t do a proper logo or that you should go for the lowest bid. The point is that with something like a strategy, or a logo, it’s impossible to know the value of it in advance. Anyone would agree that even $35 million for the swoosh would have been money well spent and even $35 for the new Tropicana logo would be too much given it’s damage to the brand.
Given this, why do you, clients, still use a tool best suited for purchasing paper to find a partner to help you develop your relationships with your customers? When you need those 500 reams of copy paper, price may really be your biggest concern. When thinking about your brand though, it can become very difficult to organize what is ultimately a long term strategic choice into 10-20 tactical questions. What is the right question to ask? And what is the right answer? What can you tell about a partner firm from the answers to a 3 page RFP? There is no intrinsic value to a proposed strategy, or ideas for a new identity. And therein lays the structural disconnect between seeking out new brand partners and the RFP. As the client, you’re putting yourself in the position of having to assess relative value of proposals that will only prove their value over time, often long after you’ve paid for it. Yes, there are other indicators besides price. You can look at an agencies results for other clients for example. But those other clients aren’t you, and by the time you know if any agency is the RIGHT agency, how many months have gone by? How much of your budget is spent?
So why do clients still use RFP’s when they’re not good for any one? Mostly because agencies are not proactively offering better alternatives. If ever there was a case of taking our own medicine, this would be it. I won’t claim to have “the” answer here, I don’t think there is “the” answer. Ultimately, this has to be something that each agency does for itself, that is designed around that agencies world view and which will become a point a differentiation for each. But what will be required for all of us is to show the value of this new process, in real terms, to perspective clients. It might mean abandoning the idea of the one big project, with the one big launch event and instead trying lots little ideas to show that a strategy is sound. That’s how I like to work. But the point is this: what’s good for us and our egos isn’t going to motivate clients to change. But by doing what we tell them to do: bringing new, better experiences to market, and demonstrating benefit, we just might all end up better.
Excellent post, Justin. The discussion is the first step to the change that you’re suggesting. It’s on us. Our friends over at Substance like to say, “let’s do better”. So are we doing better by having these discussions? I certainly hope so.
Great post Justin,
As with any creative service, it is hard to quantify the exact value an agency brings to a project ahead of time. The Nike vs. Tropicana example you used is a gem.
In this case though, I think the tough economic times triggered the original action, as such the response was exacerbated much more than if biz was booming. It’s no secret that Oregon’s doing it tough at the moment, and the creative class of Portland adds much to the vitality of the city. It is easy to see can see how a sense of betrayal ran rampant.
But at the same time, in a time that governments across the country are hell bent on being fiscally prudent, it is a totally understandable one.
Onward and upwards
I appreciate your thoughts on the #portlandonline conversation happening right now. As a designer, I am annoyed with the City of Portland for choosing this manner in which to get free design work. My preference is for them to keep the site the way it is rather than risk releasing a lower-quality site that does not serve the interests of the citizens of our great city. I am fascinated by the idea of involving the community in the development of the City’s website…however, feel that the RFP itself is poorly structured for any significant, quality result to emerge. Many tough questions much be answered for an effective website to be built.
It might be more intriguing if they had asked for citizens to pitch in with the “wrapper” or “skinning” of the site. For this to happen, there would have to be a very specific document released with all of the dimensions for backgrounds, buttons and other page elements from which to design around. In essence, the look and feel would be up for grabs…but the actual web design and UI would be handled by a professional group who can deliver a quality navigational experience.
As a citizen, however, I am frustrated that the City of Portland is not committed to it’s own website. I feel as though the City’s website offers vital life services to the people who live here and should be able to do whatever it takes to provide a superior website with a UI that is the envy of cities around the country. Portland is the “city that works” isn’t it?
On that note, i am more concerned that the website is good…than I am with the misguided RFP effort. In my experience, crowd-sourcing produces unreliable results. Just look at the RYZ project. The website and company branding are top notch, innovative gems. The user generated designs featured on the shoes to this point (no offense to anyone) are mostly second rate.
Other cities look to Portland as an example of a great city. What sort of damage would it do to our reputation if our website turns out to be a clunky, confusing piece of dog doo? What happens when people aren’t able to access important city services which represent the tax dollars they contribute? Embarrassing, if you ask me.
Agreed Charlie – tough times call for creativity on everyones part. That’s what motivated me to write this, my biggest issue isn’t with the city trying to patch budget holes while also giving the city a better online presence, it’s commodification of the process. What would be nice to see, from all clients, but also from agencies is a lot more thought and creativity into the process of both finding a new partner as well discovering what type of work even needs to be done in the first place.
In the case of portlandonline.com, there was a presupposition that what was needed was a full overhaul of the existing site. A costly and time consuming process. But is that really the best use of everyones time? Is that really the most effective end result? It’s really impossible to say without the type of insights you can only get by establishing a relationship and doing some testing and discovery. For all we know, the city might be better served with a well maintained Facebook page (just as an example). That where I feel the RFP process does everyone a disservice. It’s full of assumptions and preconceived notions about solutions and value before any insight has actually been gained.
Taylor – all good insights, though I have to take exception to people terming this crowd sourcing. For me, that term gives the process too much credit. Crowd sourcing, in my mind, has always been about asking people to give their thoughts and insights into a project to make it better for them. As far as I can tell, this is just asking for free work. That’s a different thing altogether.
Well put! I do believe however that RFP’s for large mutli-million accounts may have some merit, but only if the clients takes the process seriously and reads the responses. For medium and small projects though, you’re spot on. Small agencies can spend more time writing these than it takes to do the job. These small jobs do lead to long term relationships and while initially tactical, can become strategic through smaller directives by the agency. Frankly, it’s the same small step approach that you mention in your blog. No fanfare here, just small consistent positioning over multiple projects over time. The client looks back after 12+ months and says, “Wow I’m building a strong effective brand”. One problem you might say, is that there is no agency fee collected for a big strategy phase, but if the client becomes reliant on the agency, for say… an average of 6 years, the long term value of the client can be worth more. Of course, this only works with medium size clients.
Interesting insights Douglas. One question I have though is where you say “One problem you might say, is that there is no agency fee collected for a big strategy phase…” Why is that? We always charge for that stage, it may only be a small percentage of the eventual budget, but it’s one of the most important parts of the entire process.
While a more workable solution than a traditional RFP is in development, there should be a a billing cycle in place for a “fee collected strategy phase” that is also a part of the process that can be creatively connected to, but outside of, any existing RFP process.
This will show that The City has “skin in the game” and all the players feel there is a proper exchange in, and win or loose we are collectively working as a team.