TBWA\Helsinki designed the campaign for the Agency of the Year survey blindfolded to illustrate the challenges of operating without knowing what you’re doing. Agency of the Year survey measures client satisfaction between marketing, advertising, and communications agencies in Finland. The exceptional execution of the campaign aims to demonstrate the importance of feedback and data in the cooperation between agencies and clients. Give feedback to your agency at www.vuodentoimisto.fi.
TBWA\Helsinki won the Agency of the Year title in Finland last year and thus got to design this year’s campaign for the survey. The aim of the campaign is to show how important client feedback is for agencies – without feedback work is like operating blind, and designers of TBWA\Helsinki demonstrated this by creating ads blindfolded, without being able to see what they were doing.
“The results are bizarre, which really isn’t a surprise. This was an extreme way of dramatizing how challenging designing advertising would be if you didn’t know what you are doing. You can’t emphasize enough the importance of feedback and transparency between clients and agencies,” underlines TBWA’s designer Timo Klemola who was one of the blindfolded designers.
The print ads that are now being published in Finnish newspapers were designed for some of the biggest brands in Finland, such as Fortum, Nokian Tyres, Vepsäläinen, Atria Wilhelm, Arla, and S-market.
Feedback on strengths and areas of improvement
Agency of the Year survey gives agencies information about their strengths and areas of improvement compared to their competitors. In addition, the study charts the attributes and criteria that effect when choosing an agency and maps out the general trends in marketing.
“We were honored to design the campaign for the Agency of the Year study. Being nominated as the agency of the year between marketing communications agencies was an honorable mention, but even more important was the data we got from the study. We naturally listen to our clients and follow the customer-satisfaction in many ways and that’s why we value the Agency of the Year survey’s data highly,” explains Sami Tikkanen, the CEO of TBWA\Helsinki.
From knowledge to action
Agency of the Year survey is based on a concept created by a Swedish marketing research agency Regi and offers information about the clients’ stance towards the quality of the participating agency’s work. The clients respond to a survey evaluating the results, fluency and agency’s understanding of the clients’ business and needs.
“If marketing is designed without data and feedback, the final results are rarely optimal. Remedial feedback is communication at its best, and giving feedback is at the core of the Agency of the Year study. By sharing their views about the strengths and areas of improvement of their agency, companies do a favor to themselves, for their agency and for the entire field of marketing,” states Pia Grahn, the CEO of Regi.
