But beyond added capability, plussed-up creative agencies—or less clunkily, creative consultancies—bring an ability to see growth through a creative lens. Granted, many investments are about optimizing a digital experience, squeezing out higher conversion rates or improving lead generation. But I’ve seen creativity be a force multiplier, too. In one recent partnership, we worked with a PE-acquired business that was making money despite an outdated brand, disjointed messaging and unengaged customers. Applying creative expression and tension to the acquired brand made it more fit to purpose and ripe for growth.
This intersects with yet another area where creative consultancies add value: seeing opportunities where analysts or investors may not. Creativity is about perceiving patterns and connecting experiences that aren’t readily defined or even understood. It’s the collective experience of many things that yields a new, novel idea or opportunity—the tradecraft of creative consultancies.
Which begs the question: What’s needed to scale these examples of intelligent, creative growth and transformation? First, we need a more generally accepted method for measuring creative potential. But as anyone who’s worked in a creative organization will tell you, simply designing an algorithm to quantify creativity isn’t enough. Method matters, especially when it comes to fostering an environment where failure and irreverence are accepted inputs into how great work gets done. To that end, creative consultancies must uphold the following hard-won guidelines to ensure the engagement’s—to say nothing of the relationship’s—success.
Invest in business strategy
While the PE firm will always represent the commercial POV in the partnership, an agency with business strategy expertise can spend less time onboarding and more time problem solving. It can also train its creative and communications teams on business modeling or common strategic frameworks and conduct deeper sector analysis of the client’s space. Bonus points when the agency puts industry or vertical experts on the working team.
But first, KPIs
The creative consultancy must stay laser-focused on the business outcomes the client hired them to drive. The urge to meander may be strong, and it can be difficult to curb creative impulses that don’t necessarily bolster the acquired brand’s bottom line. Indeed, straying from the KPIs established at the start of the partnership is a sure way to kill both the dynamic of the partnership and the pledge of ROI for the portfolio company or investment itself.
The best agency-PE partnerships start with clear alignment on the investment’s KPIs. Are we working to drive conversion or reduce cost of acquisition? Are we improving brand sentiment? Ensuring both teams have a clear sense of KPIs—and a means of keeping each other accountable on the delivery path—will beget fewer issues and better work.
