Are You Creating Thick or Thin Value for Your Clients?

By Tim Williams

Dutifully filling scopes of work for clients is "thin value." You're doing what's asked, meeting your deadlines, and staying within budget. But all of that is expected; it's what competent agencies do.

Most firms produce hundreds or thousands of outputs every year. Even if these deliverables are well designed and well executed, you are still delivering only average value. Competent agencies get fired every day.

A recent study from the European Association of Communications Agencies points to what today's clients want and need most from their marketing partners: to be challenged. Smart marketers are looking for agency partners that can provoke them into a new way of seeing and solving their business problems. There are countless agencies that can execute a Scope of Work, but precious few who will push back and focus instead on a Scope of Value.

Durable vs. disposable

Thin value is fleeting. Social media posts and digital banner ads come and go. That's not to say they're unimportant. Every piece of communication must effectively contribute to the story of the brand. But unless coupled with a game-changing idea, these deliverables are table stakes in the agency-client relationship. 

Thick value, on the other hand, is sustainable, meaningful value. Economist Umair Haque compares these different types of value to different kinds of growth. There's smart growth and dumb growth. Smart growth is the result of innovation and investment in the future, whereas dumb growth is fueled by "raw, transient consumption." Dumb growth is economically unsustainable and creates only thin value in the economy. It lacks substance because it fails to produce durable, lasting improvements in brands, companies, and society as a whole. Says Haque:

"Skin-deep differentiation, transient market share, a saturation-bombed brand, another half-penny of cost advantage—all offer only more and more arduous paths to outperformance, if they offer it at all. They're a losing hand in a world where the deck is fast being restacked in favor of high-quality profit."

Oversupplied vs. undersupplied

Thick value is created when we help our clients explore and answer the question "What is possible?" Instead of just helping them meet their needs today, we're helping them define and develop what they should be doing tomorrow. 

Thin value is often about quantity (filling orders), whereas thick value is about quality (solving problems). There's a considerable difference between the agency that is good at high-volume production and one that excels at high-value ideation and problem-solving. Thin value agencies produce outputs; thick value agencies are squarely focused on producing outcomes. 

Thin value lives in the world of oversupplied services, overdeveloped markets, and satisfied client needs. It's a type of value that is competitive and commoditized. Thick value is about underdeveloped services, underserved markets, and unsatisfied client needs. It is rare and valuable. 

Scarce vs. easy to find

One of the most basic principles of economics is that products and services that are difficult to find, in limited supply, and available from only a few providers can command a premium price. For professional service firms, there's a valuable lesson in the law of supply and demand. Astute marketers have long understood the power of perceived scarcity (limited editions, private sales), knowing that the power of limitation can significantly boost sales. Marketing author Seth Godin observes that "The only things that are scarce in today's interconnected world are the things that are difficult, and the only things that are valuable are the things that are scarce." In other words, if it's easy, it's not valuable.

Thick-value offerings have pricing power because it's difficult to compare them to anything else, and prospective buyers have little or no prior experience buying similar things. You likely know what a "fair price" is for a gallon of gasoline but would have a lot more difficulty judging the price of an ounce of caviar. There is margin in mystery.