Guaranteed campaign to challenge clients

Advertising agencies in Dubai are daring to challenge their clients to enhance their communication objectives and provide the desired results. This is the new method by Belgiovane Williams Mackay (BWM), who is offering a campaign to clients with promised results "or else it's free".

This is not a buy-one-get-one-free approach, but BWM has announced its new campaign 'The work works. Guaranteed'.

What does 'guaranteed' mean? Well, it means the agency is willing to pay back the entire fee to the client if the campaign doesn't work to the agreed success criteria, provided the client takes the advice of BWM along with its strategic and creative decisions.

Bottom line, the agency is allowing itself and its clients the benefit of the doubt. Leading brands in the UAE are challenged to ensure they are getting the right ROI from their agency partners.

BWM's Managing Director, Anthony Dalton, explaining the objectives of the campaign, said: "Now that the market has slowed down, and has certainly in the last couple of months, it is the first time that CEO's of businesses in Dubai are considering their expenditure and looking at the best options to maximise the efficiency of their spending.

"During the past five years or more, many businesses have seen incredible growth in the UAE with success stories across most industries, especially property. But much of this success has been gained from organic growth of the market rather than through brave and truly "value-adding work from creative agencies"."

With the situation changing in global markets, CEO's in companies and advertising agencies have been speculating on a reduced growth during the first quarter of 2009. Many advertising campaigns have been put on hold or cancelled, awaiting the course that the market will take in the next few months.

"Rather than being scared, we are telling our clients that it takes a real business partner to get through. Some of the greatest businesses, like Microsoft, were created during a downturn."

For the project, BWM is selecting an exclusive list of projects for their offer, with a plan to have the list finalised by end-December.

Dalton said: "We intend to select a number of ambitious businesses that share our vision. Real estate is definitely going to be involved because it is the sector that needs most help on the creative side, but we also intend to target businesses across all industries. The downturn encloses opportunities for different marketing media to finally shift to pronouncing the big creative ideas, rather than sheltering with the traditional ones.

"Some creative ideas do not require media spend, and even with traditional media, sending the right message is key to effective spending."

Based on success criteria agreed with clients, BWM will measure the impact of its advertising campaigns. Such criteria include sales volume and brand measures.