Can you collaborate with a competitor?

No way, you say.

Think again. Right here in our backyard, Target is asking agencies who might otherwise consider themselves competitors to collaborate. If you’re not cool with this, well then, maybe you better get with the program.

More and more agencies are being asked to set competitive agendas aside and work collaboratively on behalf of their common clients.

Over at MarketingProfs Daily Fix, I interviewed Lance Thornswood, Interactive Creative Director at Target, who speaks about his role managing multiple “best-in-class” agencies.

“I’ve yet to encounter any agency that can handle both the breadth and depth required across all our media types,” says Thornswood. “They either do many things reasonably well or one thing exceedingly well. By orchestrating the integration on the client side and demanding collaboration among our agencies, we get breadth by combining the deep expertise of the best agencies in each medium.” (Read the full interview here.)

Question for all you smart MIMA members:
Are you working side-by-side with competitors?
Is it working?

Please share.

This entry was posted by Gwyneth Dwyer on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 6:51 am and is filed under Agency Topics, Interactive Marketing.
Comments Feed Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Can you collaborate with a competitor?

One Response to “Can you collaborate with a competitor?”