In the creative industry, it’s pretty fair to say that we’re all so busy working for our clients we rarely put the same efforts into our own business. We all know what we should be doing but don’t – at least not to the extent we do for our clients. Client work always takes priority – as it should, but it shouldn’t stop an advertising agency taking advantage of its own in-house talent.
We’ve always been keen to practice what we preach. It makes sense to us and our clients to do so. You wouldn’t use an SEO agency if they weren’t appearing at the top of the search engines, would you? And you wouldn’t use a creative agency that claimed to be able to make you stand out above the rest if they couldn’t do it for themselves.
Be Your Client
Clients still reign over our resources but rather than practice on our clients, we try out our recommendations on ourselves first. We allocate time for that purpose and stick to it, treating our own agency as one of our clients.
Prove Your Talent
Dubai Lynx 2015, the most highly anticipated event in the Middle East’s calendar, was a perfect case in point earlier this year where we were keen to demonstrate the power of event marketing.
As MENA’s leading festival for creative’s, Dubai Lynx attracts the biggest names in business from around the world. Seminars and speakers included Google, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. The agency attendance read like a Who’s Who in the ad world including the likes of Leo Burnett, Saatchi, WPP and Lowe. And, of course, BenchMark.
The event ran over 4 days and 4 stages, ending with an impressive awards ceremony. We were invited to speak on the Monday afternoon about healthcare communication and its importance in the region.
We spoke from the heart, telling the story of how our work is changing lives. Starting with the incredible impact we’d had with Adel Sukkar (the character who had captured the attention of so many in the Middle East), we then took the audience through our One Heart campaign and Stay Strong initiatives.
We called the speech, “The Wake Up Call”.
We were determined to make an impact; to stress the importance of getting healthcare communications right – not for the recognition or awards, but to save lives.
Stand Out
Did we stand out above all those other headliners?
The best people to answer that were those that attended the event and, according to their ratings, the BenchMark keynote achieved the highest audience rating - not just for our stage but the highest overall rating for the entire festival.
We stood out above every other seminar and speaker, and got our message out there, which is exactly what we do for our clients.
It pays to work on your own agency – for the learning experience and to demonstrate your abilities.
Agencies! It’s time to add another client to your portfolio: You.
