Perth-Based indie works with client to rethink remuneration, launch subscription model.
Pictured: Simon Lamplough, Mark Braddock, Josh Mullens
Exclusive: Block worked with Kitchen Warehouse marketer Simon Lamplough to build UnBlock, telling LBB’s Lilya Murray the model will improve client relationships and “get straight to the good bit, which is the brief and the work”
Perth-based creative agency Block has launched UnBlock, a subscription-based model co-created by one of its top clients and designed to remove friction and unnecessary cost negotiations.
“We don't debate cost. We're done. We've agreed [on] the model. We understand what every different shape of the project is going to cost,” Simon Lamplough, UnBlock co-creator and Kitchen Warehouse chief customer officer, told LBB.
“You just get straight to the good bit, which is the brief and the work.”
Simon worked at agencies including VCCP and AMV BBDO in London and Clemenger BBDO in Melbourne before he moved to Perth and stepped into his current marketing role in 2022.
A Block client, he worked with founder and chief creative officer Mark Braddock, and head of Eastern(Block) -- the agency’s east-coast arm -- Josh Mullens to rethink the traditional agency model.
Clients will pay for ‘Block Bits’, priced according to the size of a potential project, and providing flexibility to shift creative priorities without renegotiating different costs.
Simon added, “We understand the medium, which in this case is something called ‘Block Bits’. And we just get on with it. The only conversation we have [is] around ‘Block Bits’, the allocation of those bits to different projects.”
Mark -- who founded Block in Perth 23 years ago and launched Sydney outpost (Eastern)Block last year -- explained clients receive a certain number of ‘Block Bits’ in a 12 month window as part of their subscription.
“Some clients will spend the majority of it in the lead up to Christmas, for instance. If you're doing retail, they'll probably spend the majority in the lead up to their sales.”
UnBlock is an alternative to project-based models, which Mark said require scoping, estimating, and negotiating each time a new project starts, which negatively impacts a client relationship.
“The old retainer model doesn't really work well either because it's based on head hours and that means there's no encouragement for the agency to work smarter,” he added.
“Obviously, subscription models … you get a certain number of hours out of that, and that's not that different to a retainer model at the end of the day.
“So we have to look for something that's outcome-based so that we can cost things you know, by outcome. Clients aren't paying for the inputs, they're paying for an outcome, that's what they want.”
Josh, an ex-Revolver EP and partner who joined to head up (Eastern)Block in September, agreed. “You can go, ‘Actually I know we said we wanted to do this, but as an agency we've been thinking about it and we reckon this is a better strategic move to spend those ‘Block Bits’ on this type of project instead’.
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