A Proposal for the Modern Creative Agency
With a few exceptions - bless ‘em - creative agencies are in business to make money. As anyone who leaves their home has seen, there are ever increasing needs for interactive experiences at the trade show, in the store, in their workplace, on the street - you get the idea. So it follows that agencies need to develop an interactive experience creation competency. IntuiFace is an automatic competency builder, enabling teams to create those interactive experiences using nothing but existing skills.
But what is the best way to make money with IntuiFace?
The existing model argues for a white label approach. Create an interactive experience and protect the “code”. IntuiFace goes unmentioned just as the use of Flash, HTML5, Photoshop and more. Clients are only given IntuiFace Player and every change made to the experience is a billed job. Agencies can increase the competitiveness of their original proposal by shaving off cost due to the efficiencies brought by use of IntuiFace. Competitors messing around with code can’t compete with the timeline or the person-hour commitment IntuiFace users can make.
This works. But it’s not the only model. In fact, because of the democratization of technology - the ability for more and more people to achieve what once required deep technical skill - there is a new model and it may be the future for creative agencies.
Rather than white labeling an experience, offer the “code” along with design and training/implementation services. Customers can make changes themselves whenever they wish while holding the agency on retainer for advanced work and training.
It’s like IntuiLab’s relationship with its Web agency. They give us full access to the CMS so we can make a variety of content and design changes. We love this flexibility and it makes us feel much better about paying the agency for those things we can’t do with the CMS.
Promote your use of IntuiFace as means of helping the client learn how to fish. Enable them to use IntuiFace and sell them your design services – since knowing IntuiFace means nothing about good design – and you set up a good long term relationship. And of course, if your client could care less about fishing, provide them a full service.
Relinquishing some control is radical and a bit risky as it’s predicated on creating an annuity business rather than on infrequent, large payments. However, to differentiate in a climate making more and more technology accessible to the masses, give it some thought.
It’ll certainly make you stand out in the crowd.
