By Tunji Faleye
Behind every thriving brand in today’s bustling marketplace is a team of creative thinkers working around the clock to shape how the public sees them and build lasting consumer loyalty. While many people link a brand’s success directly to the company itself, it’s the advertising, branding, and marketing communications agencies that are just as crucial in crafting the strategies and campaigns that keep brands in the spotlight, relevant, and competitive. Their creativity, market insights, and knack for connecting with audiences have become essential in building strong brand equity.
The impact of these agencies goes well beyond just creating eye-catching ads, campaigns, public perception. They weave together engaging brand stories, design unforgettable campaigns, and implement innovative communication strategies that help businesses grab attention and grow their market share in crowded industries. By tapping into consumer behaviour and predicting market trends, they help brands adapt to shifting customer expectations while still maintaining a unique identity.
Interestingly, many brands that could have easily faded away have managed to stay strong and competitive thanks to the outstanding efforts of their agencies. With bold ideas, strategic repositioning, and powerful storytelling, these agencies have revitalized struggling brands, turning them into market leaders or helping them reclaim their relevance. Their work highlights just how crucial creativity and strategic communication are for driving business growth and ensuring long-term brand success.
Uncomfortable Truth
Sadly, there is an uncomfortable truth about the creative ideas agencies deliver. Most agencies are bound by contracts that assign ownership of their creative works to their clients. As a result, agencies have little or no control over the intellectual property they create, losing works that could have become valuable assets. Numerous undisclosed cases, often kept quiet for fear of losing business, reveal how clients have compelled agencies to relinquish ownership of their creative works, leaving them with no opportunity to claim their intellectual property rights.
While this has persisted for years in the marketing communications industry, the inability of professionals to address the imbalance in such agreements and create alternative revenue streams for their agencies has become a major setback.
However, in other parts of the world, including Europe and America, intellectual property (IP) is taken much more seriously. Agencies strategically protect their creative works, retain ownership rights, and are therefore able to monetize their intellectual property.
The Way Out
To reverse the trend, Barrister Nosakhare Uwadiae, an intellectual property monetization specialist and brand protection expert, advised agency owners and consultants to stop thinking like executors and start thinking like entrepreneurs. According to him, PR agencies, advertising agencies, brand consultants, and digital strategists are building valuable IPs without realizing it.
Barrister Nosakhare said: “Every campaign produces brand names and campaign identities, taglines and messaging systems, storytelling frameworks and creative directions, consumer insight models and research outputs, crisis and reputation positioning systems, content engines, and communication playbooks. But here is the uncomfortable truth: most agencies treat these as deliverables, not assets. So, they create value, deliver it, and walk away.”
He continued: “Meanwhile, both sides are affected. Agencies lose long-term value creation, while clients inherit powerful systems without ever properly structuring ownership.”
Despite what appears to be a season of anomie, he argued that the question every discerning professional should ask is: Who is the real owner of the system behind the campaign, and not just the campaign itself?
He further posited that the next stage of growth for the industry should not end with execution but should extend to IP creation, IP protection, IP ownership, and IP monetization. He advised agency owners and other marketing communications professionals to be intentional about structuring ownership of their intellectual property in order to build lasting wealth for future generations.
Expert Opinions
Adding to this, Olusegun McMedal, Chief Executive Officer of Upticomm Marketing Company, a provider of innovative marketing communications solutions, said that while some clients bind agencies with contractual clauses that transfer all rights to them, such agreements should include a rights reversion clause. According to him, this would enable agencies and the creators behind the works to reclaim ownership and retain control over their intellectual property.
Other industry experts believe it is time for stakeholders to rethink the existing business model to enable agencies to retain greater control over their intellectual property. They also advised practitioners to develop mechanisms for the introduction of pitch fees, thereby creating a more equitable playing field for both creators and users of creative works.
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