That headline is a bit of a misnomer.  There is not one universal process that works for all clients.  The bigger the client and or project the bigger the need for a process that leads to profitable work.  Process for the sake of process never works for the agency or the client. 

We need to stop the madness of meetings.  Does anyone really accomplish anything
in a meeting?  When you work with your SWAT (Special Weapons And Tactics) team at critical points that should be all the group love you need.  In that model everyone knows their deliverables.  Meetings should be used to give a large groups information and nothing more.

A process should offer checks and balances as well as the flexibility for opportunity.  Lets not forget - clients don't buy processes - they buy ideas.

The best organizations know exactly who needs to be involved when.  For instance, in the input stage of a campaign the ideal players in the room are your client, account, planning and creative.   It is those players who come together to come up with the best brainstorms and briefs.

We in the agency business are as guilty of the mental masturbation as well as self delusion.  Lets begin with the delusions.  Our clients don't care how we work.  They want true insights and effective work.

Now on to the mental masturbation. Damn we do a lot of it!  We often forget that we are not the audience. When we present an idea to people we need consumer insights to back that up.  Its time to realize that what we say carries more importance or impact than what the consumer feels about our brands.  It does not! Keep It Simple every step of the way.

Over the past few years I have witnessed the ability for large marketing organizations and agencies become paralyzed looking for that nugget of data that specifically answers a website function instead of making creatively smart hypothesis and setting up consumer conversations to “test and learn” from what they say to consumers through feedback loops.

The idea is a hypothesis as well as a conversation starter.  If the idea, is closely tied or built on a foundation of consumers insights and is relevant to the consumer in the moment and medium that it is delivered in - it the perfect place to start for a phenomenal consumer relationship.

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