Experiential agency selection demands careful consideration of where your spend is going. The current topic for everyone is of course the economy–or the “new” economy (a way to not say recession). But I think there is something to that turn of a phrase — let’s take a look:

Consider the term new economy not so much as a description of current conditions, but rather as a mantra — to think and spend and invest with new economy, with a new focus on value and a new premium on “being economical.”

I have a New Hampshire “Yankee” aunt. “Use it up, wear it out, make it do, or do without” is her mantra. In her world there NEVER, ever was a thing wrong with being “economical.” Her old economy, is our new economy, and it does have importance in Experiential Marketing. Here’s how:

If you are a person responsible for the marketing dollars of your brand, service, cable network, whatever, you have always had a fiduciary responsibility to seek the best deal for your company — and now you have to do that even better. The way you go about being more nimble, more “economical” requires a broader base of options, and the willingness to break old purchase habits. The “newly economical” require “new” services and vendors.

In our business there are largely two groups of experiential agency players — the ones who belong to big conglomerates, and the best-of-class independents We are the latter. In all honesty, both have merits, but we believe in this “new economy” marketers must adopt a “new economical” approach to doing business. This is where the privately held agency can deliver even more.

It is a tough time to justify the corporate fee/stipend/tax/revenue that subsidiary agencies must pay out of their P&E back to the holding company — usually it hovers between 15-20%!

That means every $1M of YOUR experiential budget can have $150,000 used to cover the network/holding company fee they assess to their subsidiary agencies — that’s a lot of dollars that could be better spent getting engagements with YOUR customers. Or in other words, not a very “economical” expenditure.

Thinking about the new economy - photo via Robert Rizzato, Flickr

If you are going to think in an entrepreneurial way to navigate the marketplace in these times — you would, it seems, be best served by looking anew at entrepreneurial agencies. Creative and strategy combined with executional capability should still win business — but don’t you think you can still get that and maximize your budget?

Those with the skills to be scalable, reactive, and still deliver best-of-class product will provide the best return on investment. We believe experiential marketing is an ideal marketing tool in which one can find great economy and maintain (if not increase) ROI over other marketing channels… even more so if you question the corporate tax/agency overhead that does not add anything to your program!

Put more of your budget into getting conversation, quality engagement and consumer consideration — not into the accounting, legal, and debt service needs of the network agency.