Engagement 03

The Cost of Culture, delivered through your agency to the brands you serve.

Most of the work I do through agencies starts the same way: a major client cannot prove what its marketing is worth, and the agency knows the problem sits in how decisions get made, not in the creative or the media. I bring an independent diagnostic and a finance reviewed figure that gives your client a reason to act and gives you a stronger seat at the table.

Discuss an engagement
What it is

Section 02

An independent effectiveness practitioner inside your client work, with a defined outcome.

I work with agencies and consultancies in three situations. A pitch or RFP where the client has asked for an effectiveness or value answer that needs a practitioner’s name and method behind it. A live client programme where the measurement, the operating rhythm or the culture is stopping the work from landing. And a client who needs the Cost of Culture put in front of its leadership team by someone who does not sell media, tools or creative.

In each case the engagement has a brief, a deliverable and an end date, and it is built on the EFFECT Framework and the Diagnostic method rather than assembled from the day up.

Who it is for

Section 03

The end client is always a major brand.

The agency work I take on serves the same organisations as the rest of the practice: large, complex brands with substantial budgets, where silos, disconnected measurement and fragmented ways of working stop marketing proving its commercial value.

If your client is in that position, we should talk. If the need is general marketing capacity or a fractional leader, it is not what I offer.

What it is not

Section 04

The agency work is not three things it is often mistaken for.

Not a fractional CMO or extra hands.
I do not provide fractional CMO services or general marketing capacity, and I do not join your team as a subcontractor. I work alongside you as an independent practitioner, under my own name and method, on an effectiveness question your client needs answered.
Not a substitute for the Diagnostic.
The Diagnostic is usually where the agency work leads. The engagement is scoped so that the end client can commission the Effectiveness Culture Diagnostic, or move to an Annual Reset, directly with me when the time is right, and that path is agreed in writing at the start. That is how your client gets the full value and how you avoid carrying a consultancy inside your fee.
Not an open-ended retainer.
Every engagement has a brief, a deliverable and an end date. When it finishes, your client should have a clear view of what its culture is costing it and a decision about what comes next. Where ongoing support makes sense, it sits with the end client through the Annual Reset, not inside your agency fee.
Engagement model

Section 05

Fixed fee. Defined brief. Senior delivery.

Agency engagements are priced as a fixed fee from £15,000, scoped against a defined brief, or as a commission arrangement where I introduce or co-sell a programme with you. I do not work by the day.

The fee reflects a practitioner with twenty years in the discipline, the IPA authorship behind the method, and the independence that makes the number credible with your client’s finance team. Typical engagements run from six weeks to six months.

Who commissions it

Section 06

Agency leadership, strategy and effectiveness leads, pitch teams.

Engagements are usually commissioned by the senior leadership running the client relationship, by heads of strategy, planning or effectiveness, or by the team leading a pitch.

The first conversation is about what your client needs to see, what you already have, and what shape of engagement gets there.

The Next Step

Agency engagements start with a conversation about what your client needs to prove and the shape of the work that proves it.

A discovery call is the place to begin. Thirty minutes. No obligation.

Discuss an engagement