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.
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March 17th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
I really think that collaboration is the trend of the future. No one group or agency can be an expert at all things web. They will naturally have strengths and weaknesses. A manager’s ability to recognize another groups strengths combined with the disciple to collaborate with another group will set him or her apart from the pack. The key to making everything work is communication, communication, communication. A future experiment at www.web-design-minneapolis.com will be to document the communication required to have 2 or more groups successfully collaborate on a project.
March 18th, 2008 at 11:19 am
Thanks Jonathan. Agree with your perspective. Keep all of us here at MIMA posted on the experiment.