Creative agencies most want to work for Nike, but Colgate, GlaxoSmithKline and Reckitt Benckiser seen as least desirable
Nike, Adidas, Volkswagen, Google, Apple and Coca-Cola are among the preferred brand owners to work with, research from The Talent Business has found.
This UK research, part of a global survey, saw 71 UK CEOs, MDs, creative directors and planning directors, earning above £150,000 base salary, to identify their most and least preferred brand owners to work with, and to rate them on a number of attributes considered important to agencies.
Gary Stolkin, global chairman and chief executive officer of The Talent Business, explained: “Our aim was to understand how the world’s most senior agency Talent views the world’s leading brand owners as clients. What drives them to work with a client, and if opinion has changed since our first tracking study, commissioned in April 2012.”
Discussing the results, he added: “Nike continues to be seen as a trailblazer by creative agencies. It is head and shoulders above the rest, 92 per cent of respondents valued it as very desirable and it led on six of the seven attributes, falling down on caring about social responsibility. Other brand owners are perceived to care more about social responsibility, but that seems to be largely irrelevant in Nike’s case.”
Colgate, GlaxoSmithKline, Reckitt Benckiser, Nestle, GM and Ford were the least desirable brand owners, according to the research.
One UK senior marketer commented that Colgate "abuse the privilege of market leadership by producing work that is lazy, polluting and banal."
The most important factor for agency leaders in the UK is that their clients value ideas and this was considered to be “extremely important” to 65 per cent of respondents.