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What makes a direct marketing client truly creative? It's a question that has been stirring up hot debate in these pages. In his column in the February issue of Marketing Direct, Marc Nohr, managing partner of Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw, asked why some clients buy bad creative work.

He suggested that some of them "wouldn't recognise a good idea if it ripped its clothes off, daubed itself in fluorescent paint and ran screaming 'buy me, buy me' through their offices".

Yet there are some direct marketers of whom the opposite is true: clients who consistently commission high-quality creative work, who champion creativity and inspire their agencies to come up with hugely successful campaigns.

Marketing Direct conducted a straw poll of DM creative directors to find out which clients take the boldest approach to creativity these days, and the five marketers profiled here are a selection of names mentioned.

Some might argue that the very format of direct marketing constrains creativity, when compared with a big budget TV or cinema ad. However, Steve Harrison, creative partner at Harrison Troughton Wunderman (HTW), believes that DM actually has a creative advantage and likens it to modern conceptual art, as opposed to a traditional painting on a canvas. "In DM, we send everyday objects, but imbue them with commercial meaning. There are few limits to the type of things we use to dramatise our selling propositions," he says. "You have much more freedom of creative expression."

So what lends such clients the ability to inspire strong creative work?

In last month's column, Nohr listed four pre-requisites that are needed for creative ideas to flourish, namely: a culture that champions original thinking, an acceptance of risk, the ability to hold your nerve and clear, strategic thinking.

Creative credentials

All five candidates profiled here measure up to these credentials, and the good news for the DM industry is that they aren't such a rare breed as they once were. According to Nohr, in the past creativity among direct marketing clients may have been held back by two factors - the perception that DM was doing a sales job and not a brand job and that direct marketers were not hired for their brand skills, but for their technical skills with data.

Nohr says that is now changing and, as a result, sectors that traditionally used to be dominated by highly commoditised mailings, for example financial services, have seen companies such as M&G and First Direct breaking the mould.

According to Story UK creative director Dave Mullen, the last five years has seen an increasing emphasis by clients on creativity. "Before that, all our talk about the importance of creative work had largely fallen on deaf ears. Clients understand its value now and there is more focus on what it can deliver."

Some inspirational clients have their own creative leanings. Marc Michaels, for example, attended art college and practises Hebrew calligraphy when not running the Central Office of Information's direct marketing arm.

However, not all have such artistic credentials. Anthony Newman of Cancer Research UK came from a data background and Honda's Steve Oliver is a graduate in business studies. And, as Newman points out, the client's job is to give good strategic input, rather than "write the headline into the brief".

Fight for brave ideas

But agencies say it can sometimes be a hindrance if a client wants to get too closely involved in creative execution. Mullen says the ideal client is one who can think creatively in a strategic way. "Sometimes the worst kind of clients are those who want to pick up a pen and write all over something."

Instead, having the ability to trust an agency's creative department is key. Colin Nimick, creative director at OgilvyOne, says that distrust of creatives can be a huge barrier to good work. "There are some clients who are always trying to second guess the creative department and suspect that it has some ulterior motive," he says.

But while having an eye for good creative work is important, having the confidence to fight for brave ideas internally is also essential. HTW's Harrison says that one of the strengths of Morag Brennan, brand and acquisition manager at HTW's client M&G, is that she understands the vital issue of compliance in financial services marketing, and as such, she can argue for work to get through that others would allow to be killed off.

As Marc Nohr says: "Buying a brave campaign is one thing - keeping it bought is something else."

MARC MICHAELS

DIRECTOR OF DIRECT AND RELATIONSHIP MARKETING, CENTRAL OFFICE OF INFORMATION

Marc Michaels, the Government's direct marketing chief, and the biggest commissioner of DM in the UK, is widely-recognised as a champion of creativity.

"There is always an assumption that the Government will be cautious, but we need a creative, brave, engaging work approach to get onto people's agenda," he says.

Perhaps it helps that Michaels has a creative temperament: he went to art college and has completed an apprenticeship to become a Hebrew scribe.

But he says he went into marketing not because it was "creative, but for the sake of getting end results". He has worked at the coalface of direct marketing, joining the Central Office of Information in 1987 and, in the early days, designed and wrote mail packs.

Agencies that work with him point to his experience. "He's a consummate direct marketer," says Marc Nohr, who worked with him on the award-winning Department of Health's anti-smoking campaign through Kitcatt Nohr Alexander Shaw. Michaels says that being 'creative' doesn't necessarily mean producing beautiful or wacky work.

Arthur Parshotom, creative director at Draft, says Michaels comes from the "properly practised creativity" school of marketing. "It's not about gimmicks - it's not about creativity for creativity's sake. It's about being relevant, but having a point of difference. His skill is to know what works, but to give it a twist, so that it is fresh and engaging."

MORAG BRENNAN

BRAND AND ACQUISITION MANAGER, M&G INVESTMENTS

In 2001, with the FTSE in freefall, M&G Investments launched a campaign stating controversially that: 'In our opinion there's never ever been a better time to invest in the stockmarket'.

The ad kicked off a series of brand-building campaigns, which have been described by Marketing Direct's sister magazine ±±¾©Èü³µpk10 as "The Economist campaign of this century".

Morag Brennan played an integral role in the campaign's development.

In 2000 she commissioned a study into the M&G brand's strengths and weaknesses to discover its essence. This led to the hiring of Harrison Troughton Wunderman (HTW) to build what M&G calls its Brand Idea. Brennan says that M&G had to differentiate itself, while not alienating its loyal customer base, and needed a "big idea" to do so. "Consumers are exposed to 3,000 marketing communications a day," she says. "If you're going to get noticed then the creative work has to be impactful."

M&G has become one of HTW's flagship accounts. Creative partner Steve Harrison says Brennan understands "that an agency needs to work to a tight and mutually agreed brief, and that it needs clear, decisive feedback from one key client once the work has been presented".

M&G has reaped the benefits. In January, parent firm Prudential announced that it had achieved record investments. Meanwhile the creative work has won more than 20 major awards.

ANTHONY NEWMAN

DIRECT MARKETING DIRECTOR, CANCER RESEARCH UK

From park benches engraved with the names of people who have survived cancer, to t-shirts bearing the message: 'I shouldn't be here', Cancer Research UK has achieved the unexpected in a sector traditionally dominated by shocking or depressing images - it has evolved its message into a positive one of hope.

Since 2002, Anthony Newman, the marketer behind this transformation, has refocused the campaign to look at survivors of the disease, rather than those dying or dead from cancer and has boosted donor numbers.

The most recent work, themed 'I shouldn't be here', won a gold at the Cannes Lions Festival. Colin Nimick, creative director at OgilvyOne, worked closely with Newman on creating the brief. He describes Newman as a client who will go with suggestions that are not always to his personal taste, if he thinks they will work.

Nimick adds that Newman's real strength is that he knows what parameters to lay down for the agency. "He pays real attention to the results," Nimick says.

Newman believes that the client brief to the agency is not the place to be creative. "Clients should not try to write the headline into the brief," he says. "Briefing the agency is about being clear on the business problem, product, market, fact-based insights and so on. I've seen briefs with exciting insights, snappy propositions and beautifully written pen portraits that mislead the creative teams. The client should know its business, audience and product best, so it should have good input to creative judgement."

STEVE OLIVER

HEAD OF CUSTOMER DEPARTMENT, HONDA UK

With its Power of Dreams campaign, Honda UK has reinvigorated its image into a dynamic and cutting-edge brand.

While outgoing marketing director Simon Thompson may have been the chief architect of this strategy, direct marketing chief Steve Oliver has successfully translated Power of Dreams into below-the-line channels such as Honda's website, magazine and literature.

After realising that not all Honda customers understood the Power of Dreams concept, Oliver sent all new customers a welcome pack, created by Hicklin Slade & Partners, containing a 'Book of Dreams' to involve owners in the company philosophy and explain the Power of Dreams theme.

Honda has since seen an improvement in customer satisfaction and increased repeat purchases. The packs won a gold for art direction at the DMA awards in 2005.

Oliver says he's not a very creative person himself. Once an agency relationship is established, he will trust them to get on with the task of creative execution. "If you have a sound relationship and are paying for the right people, you are going to get results," he says.

HAMISH TORRIE

BRAND EQUITY CHAMPION, ARDBEG

Hamish Torrie admits he's an unconventional marketer: "I don't do market research on Ardbeg, and I don't write briefs." Instead, marketing for the single malt whisky brand is based on "a kind of telepathy" between himself and Story, the agency Torrie has worked with for the last six years.

Since Glenmorangie acquired the Ardbeg distillery on Islay in 1997, Ardbeg has built up a huge following via its CRM programme. Enthusiasts become members of the Ardbeg "Committee" and the brand communicates with them via quirky mailers and newsletters. Ardbeg does virtually no above-the-line advertising, but has recruited more than 30,000 members to the Committee and has attracted a younger crowd to its product.

Its work has consistently won creative awards. Last year, it won a gold medal at the DMA awards for launching a brand, Serendipity.

Story creative director Dave Mullen describes Torrie as "in touch with the creative product. He could pick up a pen and write something for you, and he usually has half a dozen ways of tackling something."

Torrie agrees he spends much of his day thinking about ideas for the brand. But he stresses that it's very much a two-way process, pointing to the long-standing relationship between the agency and client. "It's about getting creative people together, but also keeping them there," says Torrie.

He also stresses that creativity is not just about flashes of inspiration: "It's about forward planning."

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