"No one will say we invented inter-company collaboration with United"

Werbewoche: As small and medium-sized agencies, you are joining forces under the United label - why?

Dominik Stibal: Today, the biggest challenge for agencies and clients is the complexity of the channels. Smaller and medium-sized full-service agencies are often not considered to have the expertise to deliver top performance on all channels. After all, those who can do everything are masters of nothing. By joining forces, we combine the expertise of three independent creative agencies that are best in class in their respective fields. We dare to admit our weaknesses and use the strengths of other agencies transparently. The collaboration between our agencies has already been successfully implemented for some of our clients, so United is not an empty promise, but a living model.

Why shouldn't I just go to the big agencies that combine all the skills under one roof?

Cornelia Nünlist: With a large agency, I have to hire the whole "steamer". If I work with a United agency, that's not necessary. If I have additional needs, there are partners who are there - but there is no compulsion. That's what we mean by flexibility. If you opt for a large agency, you have to pay for the whole thing.

Karin Estermann: As owner-managed agencies, we are much more agile and nimble. Those who can make decisions sit together, start the project and go back to their agencies. As we all work in the same way, decisions can be made very quickly.

Pius Walker: It's about passion and how we can best cultivate it. Of course, passionate people also work in large agencies. But if we look at the last 20 years in the industry, it's always been the same: first the agencies are small, then they outgrow their size, and the passion falls by the wayside somewhere.

If you opt for a large agency, you also have to pay for the whole structure.

Why?

Walker: A large company requires a different structural management. Above a certain number of people, you can no longer manage an agency in the same way as a small one. There is a break that not everyone can survive creatively. These are structural challenges that also affect the passion of the people who work there. We believe we can overcome this challenge with our system. That is the basic idea.

How exactly do the three agencies work together under the United construct?

Walker: United is a dynamic alliance. We cultivate our individual strengths and thus continue to sharpen the independence of our agencies. This allows us to engage in a relaxed and constructive exchange with each other. This is not a matter of course in an industry that is also characterized by its vanity. Every agency has its own little garden, and collaboration is often difficult. We see this as a great opportunity for United.

Every agency has its own little garden, and collaboration is often difficult.

A client continues to approach you as an individual agency and not United?

Walker: Exactly. As a customer, you have the advantage of having just one point of contact - Station, Content and Form or Walker. It is now possible to involve the other two partners. This means that the customer has the personal and individual support of a small agency, combined with the personnel power of a large agency with 87 permanent employees.

Many agencies have been working together regularly for a long time. What is the difference to the United construct?

Walker: For the customer, the elimination of the coordination effort and the fact that the United partnership is already integrated and lived is certainly important.

But isn't it the case that similar models already exist today, simply without a label?

Stibal: When a client decides to work with different agencies, it often happens that they engage in trench warfare with each other. The digital agency wants to enter the "little garden" of the traditional agency and vice versa. Everyone wants to bring in a little more money in one way or another.

That doesn't happen to United agencies?

Stibal: No, because we draw a clear line here. This means that the customer can be sure that there will be no trench warfare or friction. That is exactly what this label is intended to guarantee: We want to work together - and we know where our boundaries are. This means that a client does not have to worry about the agencies pulling in the same direction. In many other cases, this partner management takes up a lot of time and money.

Walker: Previously, a lead agency would choose digital agency X to implement an app for them, for example. We do things differently: once the contract has been awarded, we sit down together and look at how we can combine our strengths. It's a completely different philosophy. The lead agency analyzes the client's needs, and if the other two agencies are affected, they are involved in the conception phase. The task is tackled together. The collaboration begins at the earliest possible stage.

The elimination of the contractual relationship is therefore also the difference to the "tbd. model" - the agency has a small core team and flexibly calls in proven specialists depending on the project.

Walker: That's right, we also know this model at Walker (laughs). No one will claim that we invented cooperation between companies with United. We are three agencies, have three strong focal points, a proven collaboration and now offer this model to our clients. It's as simple as it sounds.

Stibal: When large volumes come in, it is difficult to quickly source enough people to implement the order. At United, we offer entities that function in the background and have a great deal of resource power at the ready if necessary. In total, we bring together around 90 people. This makes us a valid alternative to large agencies.

Patrick "Patman" Spahr: I see the strength in networking independence. We are three independent agencies, will continue to have our own clients and cultivate our own culture. At the same time, we want to shape and develop United. The potential of ideas that come together in this way is enormous. We know all the important factors and know which specialists we can deploy if necessary. All this knowledge flows into the pool and can be offered under the United label. In a way that is usually not possible with large players: as they only operate everything as a sub-sector, they struggle to attract the right people. We, on the other hand, as a still independent, specialized digital agency, know exactly which people and which technologies are needed - and how we can provide them.

As a digital agency, has Station also flirted with the idea of full service in the past?

Patman: We have made a conscious decision not to do this. Because we stand by it: We can't do it because we're not set up for it. Perhaps that was partly a disadvantage in terms of certain mandates. Of course, we have always followed the whole development of digital agencies. I myself come from a traditional communications background, having worked for Weber, Hodel Schmid, Publicis . . . (looks at Pius Walker) . . . you used to be at Publicis too, didn't you?

Walker: (laughs) No ... I really don't think I was ever at Publicis . . . (laughter)

Patman: Well, I switched to digital 20 years ago and experienced the whole development from the very beginning. When the big agencies slowly started to go digital. But they were faced with the challenge of attracting the right people or didn't even know who the right people were. We, on the other hand, have always focused on these topics and are therefore very close to the latest developments. At the same time, we also know our weaknesses. We have therefore always worked together with other agencies and are described as very capable of interfacing. However, the initial situation was often very different. In most cases, we were simply put together and then tried to work together as well as possible. In the United construct, it is of course much more exciting because we work together.

But doesn't this construct also make collaboration with other agencies more difficult if you are "trapped" in this model? Are there nasty looks when a third party is brought in whose skills could also have been covered by a United partner?

Walker: We'll start now and hope that the evil eye will wait a little longer. (Everyone laughs.) It's a bit like the Rütli Oath in 1291. It's quite possible that other agencies will be added instead of evil eyes.

What requirements do you have for a potential additional United partner?

Our credo is that we bring together best-in-class agencies. And above all - as Patman put it so well - that an agency also knows what it can't do. We don't want to work with agencies that claim to be able to do everything. We are aware of our strengths and weaknesses. Almost every customer today has needs that a single agency cannot cover.

We don't want to work with agencies that claim to be able to do everything.

So what the three United agencies actually have in common is that they - rather rarely in this industry - admit their weaknesses?

Stibal: Exactly. And I believe that this transparency is also what the client ultimately appreciates. They want agencies at the table that are specialized.

Estermann: With all the customer contacts we have, we have learned what is trusted and what is not. That's why we connect and make ourselves stronger.

Walker: Knowing our own weaknesses is the strength that unites us. The philosophy "We are all equally good and are now doing something together" would make little sense. Good partners are independent. If everyone brings their strengths and weaknesses to the table, a new strength emerges. A humility that has not yet been felt much in our industry.
Nünlist: As everyone knows each other's strengths and weaknesses, you can incorporate each other's strengths very early on in a project. It's not the case that the creative agency already creates the entire digital concept - and then the digital agency comes along and says: all well and good, but that won't work.

The knowledge of our own weaknesses is the strength that unites us.

About communication: How do you present yourself with the United label? Where does it come into play in everyday life?

Stibal: This is precisely regulated: We do not appear as United, but add "Member of United" in brackets to our agency name.

Is it also a balancing act, because on the one hand you want to strengthen your own independent brands, but at the same time you want to establish the label and make it known?

Walker: On the contrary. The model promotes the independence of the individual partners and thus provides the basis for solid cooperation. A question that we at Walker have been asking ourselves for years: How can we stay small and still grow? It sounds like a contradiction in terms, but this is how it works. The best example of this comes from the aviation industry: the Star Alliance. Customers have countless advantages, they can earn miles with all partners, know that their luggage will reliably reach their final destination across all airlines, they can use the different lounges - and yet Thai Airways and Swiss are different airlines, remain independent and are managed separately. And that's a good thing. The customer benefits from this alliance - and so do the airlines. And that's how you have to think of it for us too: It simply has advantages (laughs).

How are you now proceeding with the "networking of independence" you mentioned?

Estermann: For example, we brought all our employees together to get to know each other. Because in future, these people will all have to work together and get to know each other.

Patman: We also want to promote this exchange. We come together again and again. But without wanting to change each other's culture. Everyone should have their own culture. Digital people, for example, simply work very differently. And even within our agency, there are very different microcultures that we combine in order to work together as well as possible. We are now trying to do the same with United.

Stibal: A very important basic idea: the cultures of the individual agencies must be preserved at all costs. After all, it is not for nothing that those who have come together for United are best-in-class in some area. You need your own culture for that. Our collaboration should not result in a mixture of cultures. In contrast to other approaches, we don't want a single culture to dominate everything. All the requirements have become so complex that you can only manage them if you have units that are top in their fields and with their culture. If you can network these units well, I think that's better than bringing everything under one roof. I also think it's important to preserve the individual cultures, because a client often chooses a particular agency for cultural reasons. Because they feel comfortable with an agency. If this culture is taken away, I think it's a negative experience for the client. That's exactly what we don't want.

Finally, a completely different question: Who actually created the logo and the corporate identity?

Stibal: We have commissioned another agency to do this! (laughter)

Interview: Thomas Häusermann

This interview was published in Werbewoche 3/2018 on February 9, 2018.