Surely there’s a better way?
There’s nothing more heartbreaking to a young entrepreneur with a bright idea and the passion to make a difference than realising that for the most part, the only thing most Zimbabweans care about is price. It’s a moment that reduces words like gourmet, bespoke, or couture to nothing more than fancy rhetoric. This has had devastating consequences on many industries, especially marketing.
How does an agency demand its worth when every client wants a bargain? How do agencies separate themselves if all our effort, expertise, and experience is reduced to the lowest nominal fee? It seems that these questions and other existential matters have to lead us as an industry to believe that value is in the cost of our services and really nothing else.
The currency of agencies worldwide is time. To negotiate or reduce the cost of service means to negotiate the amount of time we spend on the project. However, the less time we spend, the less quality we produce; and therein lies the problem. If we reduce our quality, we limit the effectiveness of our work for our clients, but if we reduce the cost of our work but maintain the time we spend, we face the very real risk of running at a loss. Agencies of late, have had to lean into this pressure more than they should; and have done so so much it has created a systemic industry-wide problem.
So where did it all go wrong?
One theory lies in the emergence of the freelancer. Now, before you think we’re about to bash freelancers, we’re not, but they certainly pose a growing threat to the industry. Freelancers helped to relieve pressure on small businesses that needed professional marketing services but could not afford the bricks and mortar of established agencies. However, in providing this goodwill, they also managed to shake up the pricing model and expectations of clients, big and small. Now every marketing and brand manager has a cousin who can do it for less. This new pricing expectation has had further consequences in that it has, unfortunately, created a quality perception that Zimbabwean marketing services are ‘cheap’ (even in quality).
If a Zimbabwean company decides to hire a South African agency they will not negotiate the price because they are confident the quality of service they will receive is worth it. Hence, clients know how to pay for quality but only when they perceive they are receiving quality.
So how do we fix it?
We (the industry) have to band together to establish certain industry standards; standards of service, standards of quality, and standards of remuneration. This will benefit even the freelancer who will no doubt appreciate a shift in his/her ability to operate.
