How to Choose an Experiential Marketing Agency

Most agency selection processes are optimized for two things: best-looking creative deck and lowest hourly rate. Neither of those predicts whether the agency will actually deliver on activation day. The agency that wins on the deck is the agency that has the most senior creative people on the pitch. That's almost never the agency that has those people on your account post-signing.

What we'd ask if we were on the brand side: 'Who specifically will be on this account day-to-day? Can we meet them before signing?' 'How many active accounts does that team currently support?' 'Can I call three reference clients whose campaigns are currently in-market?' Those three questions filter out 70% of the field.

Don't decide on the basis of one big pitch presentation. Decide on the basis of a small, paid test, a single-market activation, a strategic POV document, a logistics deep-dive. Pay the agency for two weeks of real work and see what comes back. The cost is minor; the signal is enormous.

Red flags: agencies that won't quote per-activation pricing, agencies that mark up production assets above 25%, agencies that don't have their own staffing roster (they're a middleman to a staffing agency, which is fine, but you should pay middleman rates not full agency rates). Green flags: photographic recap decks from prior clients, a real measurement framework, named staff leads on every market.

About the author

Caley Vickerman. Leadership at Ignite Productions, focused on staffing, operations and the field teams behind every program.