When it comes to working with a creative agency the premise is that the agency should know exactly how to proceed with the project. But if you look at it clearly, all projects are different and all brands/companies require a unique approach. Sometimes it just comes down to a situation where not everything can be meticulously planned and crafted.
But is this kind of ambiguity necessarily a bad thing? Not exactly. Ambiguity means not knowing how everything should come together. It doesn’t mean that the agency will be stuck without any way to proceed. If you know the creative agency has a track record of having produced great results for their clients, then you’re probably in good hands. It just comes down to you embracing ambiguity if the agency can embrace it.
With embracing ambiguity comes the ability to embrace all kinds of possibilities. Because both you as the client and the agency, is not tied down to a narrow idea, there is much more freedom to come up a wide variety of solutions that can help you reach your goals. Creativity, innovation and intuition can all be exercised at their maximum capacity to come up with something that hasn’t been done before.
This can result in breakthroughs because the project can be approached from a bird’s eye view. The bigger picture can be seen and everything step moving forward will be focused on reaching the primary goal. Embracing ambiguity can also result in multiple solutions that meets your goals. While only one solution will be used, the best aspects of each solution can be integrated into the final chosen solution.
If you’re still not convinced about ambiguity, just conduct some research. If you look at some of the most successful advertising campaigns, you’ll learn that many of them were created from a situation where the typical thought process just wouldn’t work. These campaigns were created by letting go of all the existing aspects of the brand, company, or product, and starting from ground zero.
A good real-life scenario of this in action is a website UX design project. The typical thought process would be to follow the rules of UX and design a safe site that adheres all the rules. This may result in a website that delivers a great user experience but nothing groundbreaking. On the other hand, there are numerous companies and brands that simply asked “how can we design a website that’s unique to our brand?” As a result of asking this question these companies and brands have created some of the most unique, engaging, and user-centric sites on the Internet.
To close, don’t be afraid of going into a sit down with an agency if you don’t have a clear picture of what you want or a clear picture of how to get what you want. If the agency has a great track record and can embrace the ambiguity to start at ground zero, the final product may be something that is far beyond what you had originally expected.