behind the curtain at strawberryfrog, part one

First, the unrelated to advertising good news: the Netherlands stuffed world champions Italy yesterday 3-0…as in, the worst defeat Italy has suffered since the 1970 World Cup, as in the first Dutch victory over the Italians in eight matches, as in the best possible way to spend a Monday afternoon.

I am thoroughly exhausted, but quite content.

Speaking of Holland, I had the opportunity last week to have an email conversation with Scott Goodson and Kevin McKeon of Amsterdam-headquartered global hot shop StrawberryFrog about their agency, being independent and why they have account people.

PART I / The role of account people

Scott and Kevin, thank you for your time. Let’s start with the account team…I ask because I just learned that Zeus Jones doesn’t have them and am curious how you view their role? How does the account side continue to add value in a changing marketing world and in an innovative shop like yours?

We’ve always seem the role of the account person as one of the most important to the entire process. At StrawberryFrog we want them to be brilliant at creatively solving business problems.

We built the agency around an open-room principle. From this platform emerges speed, friendship, respect and all the important things that are needed to make it happen. [The New York office is] housed in a large open space in the penthouse of a building on Madison Avenue and it allows us to work with a lot of motivation, inspiration and knowledge because it’s all open and everyone is mixed together. Everyone knows and appreciates each other’s work and if anyone is called away of feeling ill someone can come in and keep the process going.

We seem to keep twice as many accounts around a single account person as a traditional agency without, I dare say, losing creativity. I would say that the role of the account people is to gain creativity and freshness because our team is moving forward all the time.

StrawberryFrog is built user-friendly. People are truly responsible for the client’s business. We think it makes our people feel more confident and more like they are making a difference which is important because the client is not sold ideas. The client is there to work with us on ideas. An Account Director is the team leader, the curator leading our cultural movement process, which liberated creativity and delivers effective communications.

In today’s cut-throat environment, former fame and glories are overshadowed by the ability to out-innovate while delivering business results. What StrawberryFrog account people have done is understand that the traditional agencies and their structures do not stand for the systems of the future. The old way is expensive and time consuming, egotistical and pretentious. All the times that we think lead to bad work and bad creativity.

Stay tuned for parts two and three as your neighborhood ad blogs digs deeper with StrawberryFrog (aka the agency you secretly wish you worked at).