Chemistry Meetings – From Proposition and Case Studies to Creative Co-Collaboration
With a refreshed agency proposition and total belief in our point of difference as the media agency that backs the underdog, the biggest challenge I’ve faced over the last year has been navigating the “Chemistry Meeting”.
You’ve turned around a competitive RFI (likely in a fairly short period of time that may or may not have involved a bank holiday weekend) and ticked the right boxes to make it through to the next stage, where you eagerly get to meet your potential new client.
A year or so ago we were doing 80% of the talking – giving the client 10-12 mins for questions at the end of a sometimes rushed hour in the boardroom. We had creds decks full of somebody else’s successes and teams that felt on display and scripted rather than being their natural brilliant selves.
The problem was, we were all hydrogen and we were starving the oxygen in the room. OK, that might be an analogy too far, but we needed to address the balance to start making the right bonds and important IRL impressions.
Finding the Fizz and Spark…
The first step to any change is realising that you need to make adjustments to your approach. True to our underdog mentality, we knew we had to come at this from a different point of view and we had to live the agency proposition in a more creative way.
Chemistry meetings became an example of our gutsy approach to client briefs and showed our curiosity through a creative co-collaboration approach.
By talking to our potential new clients, asking (sometimes uncomfortably difficult) questions we turned the conversation from ‘All About Us’ to ‘All About You’.
We learned more about the client’s business, organisational challenges and the reason for the pitch. Of course, we got to the ‘About Us’ bit but the focus was now undoubtedly the client.
Making Bonds isn’t always easy
We trained the business in our new creative and collaborative approach and made sure we implemented it in every Chemistry meeting. It is not a fixed methodology as every client is different but creative collaboration sits at the heart and includes everyone from planner buyers to the CEO.
What happens if the client doesn’t want to join in, I hear you cry? Well, we’ve yet to meet a client that hasn’t loved and enjoyed the process of co-creating with us. However, sometimes you might have to nurture a sceptic through the process or ask them a particular question to unlock their area of enthusiasm. In our experience we’ve found procurement contacts particularly amenable to our creative approach.
In the Middle of a Chain Reaction
The best thing about our new process has been the reaction of both clients and our people. Chemistry Meetings are fun and enjoyable for all parties. By creating something together we have a springboard for future meetings and engagements. The Chemistry Meeting is the start of something special we are building together.
Put the Curium in Curious
As with many things in new business, you can’t just roll out your last successful strategy or approach – the process is always evolving and is different for every client.