The 11th annual ‘What Clients Think’ report by Up to the Light was launched recently in a DBA webinar. Based on 680 in-depth client interviews, the report gives you a unique view into client/agency relationships. 

The ‘What Clients Think’ report is a valuable tool for agencies and clients alike. It helps agencies put themselves in their clients’ shoes and predict reactions and objections before they are raised. For clients, it enables them to benchmark the issues they face, their approach to design and the relationship they have with their agencies.

The report is divided into three sections: ‘Client World’, ‘Winning Clients’ and ‘Retaining & Growing Clients’. It particularly helps agencies plan new business approaches, assess their client servicing and improve relationships, because as report author Jonathan Kirk highlights, “client/agency relationships rarely break down due to creative work, it is usually around a servicing issue”.

Here are my top five take-outs from the report and launch event:

Agencies need to better understand potential clients

Be clear on what you do

Websites can work harder

'Value for money' is rarely about money

Case studies need a closer look

2025 'What Clients Think' report

Up to the Light’s 11th annual report is based on 680 client interviews conducted on behalf of creative agencies. It is not to be missed by anyone involved in client/agency relationships and is packed with invaluable feedback and insight. Download your copy. 

DBA members can watch a full recording of the DBA webinar launching the report.

• At each stage of your marketing journey, there’s a risk that your customers start hesitating before purchase – cost of hesitation trend. This could be because there is now so much AI and sponsored content in response to their searches, before they reach the natural search content they’re looking for, that a lack of trust creeps in to what they’re seeing online, and if it’s real; there are question marks around safety. 
• Hesitation in your marketing funnel is going to have an associated cost. We’ve worked so hard to make digital interactions seamless but this has impacted trust. If people move from hesitation to abandonment, that’s a very real cost that will seep through to margins and volumes.
• If anything, growing economic uncertainty may increase the impact of this trend, as people become choosier / more careful about where and how they spend their money.
• The parent trap comes from a rise in wanting the best for children and young people, but understanding that those things may also be harmful. A rise in both ground-up action and top-down legislation around reducing smartphone and social media use by children and adolescents may make them and families hard-to-reach audiences. If a proportion of your target market disappears in this way, how do you reach them, and how do you do that ethically?
• A growing impatience economy means people are increasingly looking to influencers and people online to shortcut them to things that really matter in their lives around health, wealth and happiness. This is shifting views on where authoritative content is coming from, with people choosing advice delivered in a relatable and attractive format over guidance from sources that are traditionally more reliable, e.g. banks or newspapers. Relatability of content is winning out.
• The value exchange between employer and employee is at risk at the moment and it’s fracturing. Culture is near impossible to create in remote environments leading to the ‘dehumanisation of work’, where the emphasis placed on metrics and productivity, before employees hear or see anything about being human or culture, is affecting the way people feel about their work. Increasingly things that people care about, such as DEI and sustainability, are being deprioritised, and this can have a knock-on effect on employee engagement, which is going to be an increasing concern for CEO’s.
• AI has the potential to further erode the dignity of work if the way it is used decreases, rather than enhances, someone’s dignity at work – e.g. using AI to review someone’s work. AI is not a colleague so don’t call it Susan – it’s a technology.
• There is a growing trend towards rebalancing our lives from overuse of digital – social rewilding. People are increasingly wanting to get out more and see people more. The unit value and novelty of digital experiences is going down because they’re overabundant, particularly with the rise of AI. Versus real life experiences, with texture, locality and culture.

Chief Executive of the DBA, Deborah Dawton, also talked through some observations and insights gathered at her recent attendance of three conferences: ‘The Future Of…’ in Chicago in March, the national conference for CHEAD (The Council for Higher Education Art & Design establishments) and the Design Management Institute’s annual European conference last week in Amsterdam.

• We all know the spotlight is falling on cutting costs and driving optimisation in business. However, for designers the opportunity lies, as it did during COVID, in the value creation space. Think about the now, the near, and the far timeline that your clients’ are working to – consider where you could be making an impact – have their horizons flipped to very near term and meeting this quarter’s targets? How can you help? Can you prioritise your efforts?
• Also, be prepared to start with evidence before selling in a major strategy. What do I mean by this? We often try to sell the really big picture which requires a lot of trust to be placed in us. So go in with a couple of quick wins that evidence your ability to deliver what’s needed so that you instil confidence in your ability to deliver against the strategy that you have up your sleeve!
• And of course, it’s never been more important to evidence the impact of what you do. That’s why the DBA is giving every member a free entry into the DBA Design Effectiveness Awards this year. Even if you don’t actually submit a case to us this year (although we hope you do and are here to help), use the guidance in this pack as a template on how to articulate the value of your work. There has perhaps never been a more important time to do this given the context most of us find ourselves operating in today.

Coming up

There was much, much more covered in the hour. Our next meeting will be on Tuesday 6 May, 4-5pm BST with further details to follow.