• Brandweek, Tuesday, May 9, 2006 12:30 PM

When conducting an ad agency review, marketers who think they only need to know the handful of people who will work on their account and not the agency's top managers are making a big mistake. In fact, the single most important person for any client to interact with at their agency is the chief creative officer, because that's the person who is really the soul of the agency. That's the message that agency executive-turned-search-consultant Brian Goodall delivers in this insightful look at life inside an ad agency. Goodall spent 30-years in various capacities at agencies in three different cities before joining Jones Lundin Beals in 2004. "It's the agency management team that sets the tone for everyone under it," Goodall writes. "Management hires the people who work in the agency. It's the senior team that determines the vision and establishes the agency's standards--ones that may or may not be in sync with your own. And it's the senior level at which the money changes hands between client and agency. For all these reasons, clients should find out if they can fundamentally see eye-to-eye with an agency's management." He also says that even if the chief creative officer doesn't work directly on a client's business, everyone who does reports to him. "The agency takes on his personality," Goodall says of the CCO. "He is more often than not the face of the agency and also its figurative soul who shapes many of its corporate and cultural values. The CCO also owns the agency in a very practical sense. For example, the manner in which the agency treats its clients can be traced back directly to the attitudes of, and example set by, the CCO. "

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