WW: What is the basic concept of Cherrypicker?
Oliver Klein: The concept is relatively simple: we help companies work better with their agencies. Either because they're looking for a new agency. Then we research: Who is the best agency for this topic. Others employ many agencies and ask themselves: How many do I actually need? Or a company has a number of agencies and wants to know how to better coordinate and synchronize them. So we help answer all the questions a marketing manager or spokesperson might have. We are a pure consulting company in a very small niche and we call it agency management.
Cherrypicker was founded ten years ago. Were there any role models?
There was a representative of an international agency consultant from England in Germany at that time. They are still active. But they have a different model. "Dear agency, give me some money and I'll see what I can do for you." These consultants operate on the principle of brokers. This always gives conflicts of interest and cannot work. As a professionally set up consultancy with several employees, we are the first. The market also gives us that back.
How has demand developed?
I started out alone as a start-up ten years ago. However, the first colleagues joined us relatively quickly. Today, we have eight permanent employees in the team and another seven specialists for specific tasks. We can't complain about a lack of orders, but compared to other countries, the proportion of selection processes handled by external consultants is still very low in this country. In the USA, for example, 60 to 80 percent of agency selection processes are handled by agency consultants. In England, the figure is an estimated 50 percent, and in Germany, well under 10 percent. In Germany and Switzerland, people expect someone who does marketing or PR to be able to do it all themselves. Realistically, however, that is no longer possible. That's why a rethinking is increasingly taking place. Internationally, more than 40 consulting firms are already active in the field of agency management.
What do consultants do better than a corporate marketing executive?
I don't think we do it better. We have different knowledge. A head of marketing deals - hopefully - with the topic of agency selection every three years, better yet every four years, and not every week. We deal with it all the time. With ever-changing requirements. We simply know the market much better. We know many more agencies, we see much more than others what's going on in the market, how the chemistry works. We measure the quality of the collaboration between customers and agencies. And we get to see a lot of things. A normal marketing manager can't see them at all. We offer them to add this knowledge to the knowledge of their team. We don't say: We know exactly which agency fits the bill. Rather, we say: We minimize the risk of wrong decisions.
That's where high credibility is very important.
Absolutely. It makes no sense not to be really fair to all participants in selection processes and treat them equally. Anything else would be frivolous. Of course you have agencies that you know better than others, of course you like one more than another. There are also many private friendships. But these should not play any role at all in a selection process. The principle of equal treatment is very important here.
You are giving a presentation today at a meeting of the BPRA. How widely is the Cherrypicker service already used in Switzerland?
Business is still relatively slow for us, and I have not noticed that other consulting services of this kind are gaining a foothold in Switzerland. In other words, our topic has not yet taken off in Switzerland. However, we have provided consulting services for Novartis, Unilever and Swarovski. We often work for the overall market of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Our mission is to find the best service provider who can support us in the DACH region. If possible, the service provider should also be located in the DACH region - and we have selection processes that also extend to Switzerland. We are not specialized in any particular country. Our criteria are the framework conditions of the customer. Someone needs an agency that "ticks very internationally" - that's when we ask: Where is a melting pot for international cooperation? There's not only London - they often have an island mentality. Amsterdam is currently very cosmopolitan, as is Copenhagen. In Denmark, there are a number of agencies that think very internationally and are not oriented to their own market, but follow what is happening all over the world. Where do impulses come from? It's the same in Amsterdam, because many people from many nations work together there under one roof. This immediately gives them an international spirit in the way they work. That's where you come up with different solutions - and that's why we take a closer look at these agencies depending on the assignment, especially for global advertising.
What is the reputation of Swiss agencies?
Swiss agencies have a very good reputation. There are very creative agencies here. I have to be critical of our German media and say that Swiss agencies are always a bit neglected in media monitoring. I regularly see exciting things from Switzerland. With very creative agencies, you simply have to take into account: How compatible are they with certain companies? Swiss agencies are often smaller, but very fine and very level-headed. I also think they don't make so much "fuss" about their own thing. Which is more than you can say about some German agencies.
How do they get an overview in detail? Grid or also gut feeling?
Gut feeling doesn't help much in our job. We sit down with a customer, usually for half a day. In a joint workshop, we develop a needs analysis. What does he need? What communication challenges does he have? What is the nut to crack? Where can communication help? What does he do in-house, what does he outsource to a new agency? Then we discuss with the advertising client: What should the ideal agency look like? What experience has the client already had? Some no longer want to work with a network agency. Others have experience with a very large or very small agency and have learned something from it. It is also important to know: How is the marketing department set up in the company? How much power and possibilities does it have? How many good ideas can be pushed through internally? How far does an agency have to be able to go through various committees and persuade them? Finally, what are the people like? That is the most important factor. Not: What is the agency like? It's just a form of organization that provides certain opportunities and perhaps also cultivates certain cultures. But the real competence is in the people who are in the agency at that particular time, and especially in those who would also work for the client. We try to inspect that as best we can. To what extent does a true sparring partner have to be at eye level, to what extent does he have to be capable of suffering somewhere, or does a client perhaps rather just need a service provider?
What tools are available for research?
No one in the industry currently has a more up-to-date knowledge base . We have documents from over 5000 agencies. I also exchange information with my colleagues. The scope is unique worldwide. Perhaps we are typically German in this respect. But so much information must of course be kept available. We have an elaborately structured database for the archive. But this information is only one source. Other sources are the rankings, depending on the topic, creative rankings, sales rankings. What does the trade press provide? Where are new agencies? What do other clients say? We also often call clients and ask them about their experiences. Clients who know us well are happy to give us confidential information, unless it's for a competitive presentation. We also make sure that everyone involved in the selection process on the customer side has proper evaluation forms and that a clear evaluation system is used. This includes questions relating to creativity, team, strategy and also commercial aspects.
Then you give grades?
We do not divide into good or bad agencies, but look: Who fits this task? We sometimes start the selection process with 100 to over 200 agencies in the first phase. That's not difficult. Then it condenses relatively quickly. Some have competitor exclusions, others belong to a network that the client doesn't want, or even geographic criteria play a role. Then we do a short interview with the agencies, ask them about their desire for the topic as well as free capacities in the time. In the meantime, we may already call the customer confidentially. So we can ask specifically for special skills. We also research whether the agency is already involved in other perhaps comparable pitches.
When those approached finally feel like it, we send a questionnaire and ask for arguments in the form of cases, people, suitability. We want arguments why an agency is "the best in the world" for this particular task and this particular client. We evaluate the answers and discuss it with our client. The client decides which agencies he likes best. That is usually ten agencies. Then there is a second workshop with the client and we discuss the documents and also have an opinion on them. This results in a composition from which the customer can make a decision. But we have not yet determined one important point: The person and the chemistry. For this purpose, we organize a "Chemistry Meeting". At this meeting, the agency team designated for the job can present itself and discuss its topics with the client. That's where you get a good impression: Who's really got it, who knows the subject, who's up for it? Surprisingly, you often see agencies coming in and presenting the same standard. Immediately afterwards, another agency comes along and you can immediately feel the heart and soul.
That seems more sensible than pitches that just burn money with ideas that don't even get implemented?
Yes, absolutely. That is the preselection for us. Often the customer then wants to go into a test phase with a sub-project with an agency. Then there is no need for a pitch. In other situations, there are three agencies in the shortlist. Then the strategy or the creation can be tested in a pitch. There are also companies or institutions that explicitly require a competition in their statutes. In this case, however, the participants are very carefully selected - not on the basis of "hearsay" of any agency names, but on the basis of a clear and clean process. You often wonder why you appear on an agency's pitch list and then find out afterwards that you didn't stand a chance from the start. That's totally unfair.
Can a pitch already provide viable ideas?
If a client thinks a pitch delivers deployable results, then they haven't really understood the method of pitching. Unfortunately, it's still the case that many clients say, "I'll brief and then I'll go into market research to test the results of the pitch. If the consumer pitches back to me that this idea is best received, then I'll pitch it. That can't work. The issue is finite. With the complexities of communication, it's going to work less and less. A marketing manager would have to know for himself: Which idea do I believe in? How do I have to improve the idea to make it even better? A really good idea doesn't come about in a pitch, but when a client team and an agency team - that can also be from several agencies - join forces, bring together their joint competencies and then develop them step by step. You can't do that in a pitch.
How often does it work without a pitch?
Half of the selection processes end in a pitch. I'm proud to say that it's only half and not all. I don't think a pitch is the best solution for many problems. If it needs it, we do briefing support for the client and look for possible test tasks. We set tasks that don't just come down to deciding "social media," "classic," or "other channels," but finding a driving idea.
And the pitch fee?
We have been campaigning for pitch fees quite massively for ten years. In the well over 300 selection processes we have had, there has only been one pitch that was free. That was for a social institution where no one got paid. A year ago, we launched a large survey of German-speaking agencies, which is representative of the industry. From this, we published pitch fee recommendations for the first time. The associations did not do this for various reasons. We had 108 agencies respond, and that's how we came up with our list of sensible pitch fee sizes. There are five different price categories. For a small pitch task, the agencies surveyed expect 3'000 to 5'000 euros. For a medium task 7'000. An extensive pitch is worth 10000 to 15000 euros. For very complex or international tasks, the recommendation calculates 20'000 to 30 000 euros.
Cherrypicker has also launched the Credential Award for best self-promotion. How about that?
Most agencies find it extremely difficult to market themselves. They don't consider their own recommendations. A typical agency recommends to the client: Be different, have a clear profile, your profile must be highly relevant to the target audience and differentiate yourself in the marketplace so that your product resonates well with the target audience. That's not what the advertising agency does. On the subject of positioning, a massive number still say: We are a full-service agency, we do integrated communication and we are 360 degrees. These are just buzz words that can't be filled with life in terms of content. It's not great positioning if 50 percent of the agencies say: I do exactly the same as all the other agencies.
Interview: Andreas Panzeri
In a nutshell
The agency management specialist Cherrypicker in Hamburg celebrates its tenth anniversary. The independent consulting firm, which was founded in 2001 by Oliver Klein as a one-man company, now has eight employees and seven specialists. Cherrypicker is considered the market leader in its segment in Germany and is increasingly working across borders. In its agency selection processes, Cherrypicker draws on credentials, presentations and self-representations from more than 5'000 agencies. Since its founding, the consulting firm has managed more than 300 selection processes.
