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Many leading businesses have relationships with their ad agencies that stretch back decades. JWT has created ads for Unilever (or Lever Brothers, as it was then) since 1926, while Procter & Gamble's relationships with Grey and Saatchi & Saatchi (via the latter's acquisition of Compton Advertising) go back half a century. P&G and Leo Burnett have worked together in the UK since 1970, and Volkswagen has been with DDB in this country for 42 years.

Such brands wear the duration of their relationships with ad agencies as a badge of pride and a reflection of their commitment. Sticking together through thick and thin shows both sides have discovered the secrets of longevity and can unlock the processes they believe allow great advertising to flow.

In it together

Procter & Gamble's corporate marketing director for the UK and Ireland, Roisin Donnelly, says that long-term relationships can be sustained only through mutual understanding and talking the same language. 'You understand each other's strengths and weaknesses so you are stronger together,' she says. 'A one-night stand, or "one-Cannes stand", would not offer these benefits.'

Donnelly believes that honesty and transparency are key, and the ability to be upfront about where things are going well and where they're not improves the partnership year after year.

'We have formal two-way reviews each year, to agree what is working and what can be improved upon from both sides,' she adds. 'This is complemented by informal on-going dialogue. Setting goals together is also important.'

Andy De Groose, managing director of TBWA\London, which has worked with Apple and Absolut for almost 30 years, says the only way to guard against complacency is to recognise when a creative vehicle has run its course. 'It is like any other relationship: you have to invest in it to make it work,' he argues. 'Then, when you have that level of buy-in from a client, you can be brave and disruptive with your ideas.'

Compared with the restlessness of brands that review their agencies every three years, long-term partners believe they can create brand positioning that endures.

Some wonder whether multinational companies stay with their agencies because it is easier than shifting complex relationships across dozens of markets. The more important question, however, is how both sides avoid their lengthy partnerships collapsing into complacency and stagnation.

Donnelly says the essential point is to 'keep listening to consumers'. Rotating assignments in the agency and within the P&G team is another way to ensuring the relationship remains fresh.

Positive partnerships

Most observers believe long brand-agency relationships are to be applauded, as long as they permit 'disruptive' elements to surface and each side to challenge the other.

Ian Armstrong, the recently appointed global communications director at Jaguar, and former European head of marketing for Honda, says the latter's 10-year relationship with agency Wieden & Kennedy was helped by an ability to disagree without falling out.

'This was not some saccharine world where it was a love-in all the time. There were many occasions when I was annoyed and disappointed,' he says. However, Armstrong adds that there were processes in place that meant such feelings could be vented and any disagreements resolved.

The essence of a successful relationship lies in trust, confidence and the ability of an agency team and the client organisation to mesh together. W&K's team spends time interrogating Honda's car designers and other leaders to uncover the emotional touchpoints behind their designs and transform these insights into ads.

Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO has worked with Sainsbury's since 1979 and has handled The Economist account since 1984. The agency's executive chairman, Farah Ramzan Golant, says the success of such long-term relationships comes down to creating 'connective tissue' between the two sides, so executives from different departments are free to call each other and discuss a wide range of business issues. This enhances the agency's ability to winkle out the all-important insights that form the starting point of advertising.

Some may wonder whether such long-standing relationships can blunt the agency's objectivity about the brand, effectively transforming it from external consultancy to in-house department.

The Economist's brand communications manager, Caroline Marrows, denies this is the case, however. 'Neither agencies nor clients are static entities,' she says. 'New blood comes in, fresh approaches are developed, exciting opportunities arise, such as The Economist on tablets, all of which can be game-changing.'

Ensuring the work remains fresh and innovative is another challenge. 'We approach every ad as if it were a standalone entity,' adds Marrows. 'We balance the views of AMV alongside internal viewpoints to create work of which we can all be proud.'

The 42-year creative partnership between DDB and Volkswagen in the UK is one of the ad industry's longest. DDB London chief executive Stephen Woodford says: 'The secret of longevity is the quality of the work, and VW is the most-awarded advertiser in the world. We are part of the VW family and it is part of our DNA.'

One crucial aspect of maintaining an enduring relationship is that the agency can develop its ways of working as the client's strategy shifts over time.

Keep working on it

Lowe Worldwide can trace its relationship with Unilever back some 50 years, via its acquisition of Lintas, which was originally the FMCG company's in-house agency.

Helen Bell, Lowe Worldwide's chief operating officer for Unilever, says: 'Unilever has changed from a locally focused company to being focused on top global brands, and has switched emphasis to developing markets. So we've had to change with it as it has gone from local autonomy to global leadership.'

Some enduring relationships are based on personal contacts between client and agency boss. Sir Frank Lowe began working with Tesco bosses Ian MacLaurin and Terry Leahy in 1989 while at the agency Lowe Howard-Spink, and continued the relationship when he set up breakaway agency The Red Brick Road in 2005, although he has since retired. Birds Eye chief executive Martin Glenn worked with AMV on the Gary Lineker Walkers campaign while at PepsiCo, and went back to the agency in 2007 as boss of the frozen-food business.

Long partnerships are most common in the automotive, personal care and confectionery sectors, where multinational companies work with global networks. Nonetheless, such relationships can continue only if both sides manage to keep them fresh and do not take the other for granted. As one, unnamed, agency boss quips: 'As soon as you think you have a safe client, it becomes an ex-client.'

HAPPY MARRIAGES

The UK's long agency/brand relationships

- Lowe and Lever Brothers since 1899 - Lever International Advertising Service, the company's in-house agency, became standalone agency Lintas, later acquired by Lowe.

- JWT and Lever Brothers (now Unilever) since 1926, when J Walter Thompson opened its London office.

- JWT and Kraft since 1926.

- JWT and Rowntree since 1935.

- Ogilvy and Unilever since 1952.

- Ogilvy and Mattel since 1954.

- Leo Burnett and Procter & Gamble since 1970.

- Volkswagen and DDB since 1970.

WHEN RELATIONSHIPS SOUR

Some long-standing ties have recently come to an end. Exxon Mobil last year ended a relationship that spanned 99 years, in one form or another, with McCann Erickson, when it hired the BBDO network worldwide. In 2010, Bartle Bogle Hegarty parted company with Levi's, its signature client of 28 years.

There can be many reasons why an enduring relationship sours, although often the effectiveness of creative lies at the heart of it.

Kerry Glazer, chief executive of agency search consultancy the AAR, says: 'The commonest reason clients say things have fallen apart is working practices, about something lacking in the output. Clients don't realise they may be contributing to the breakdown by giving poor briefs or being slow to make a decision.'

Abbott Mead Vickers executive chairman Farah Ramzan Golant adds: 'In almost every case of a breakdown, it is because both sides go into sleep-working or one half loses confidence and the other half carries it until it becomes clear the confidence can't be restored. Those are usually long, drawn-out and horrible deaths, because one half is trying to carry the other half.'

CUTTING TIES

Tupe: transfer dealings

Tupe - The Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 - has complicated the process of moving ad business. In essence, responsibility for those working on an account will transfer to the winning agency. When Wieden & Kennedy won Nokia from Grey in 2007, for example, it took on 12 staff from Grey who had been working on the business.

Some worry that this means if a client is unhappy with the staff working on its business, there is no way of escaping them since the new agency is obliged to hire them. In reality, while the new agency may recruit them, it is not obliged to keep them on the same business. So, in practice, says the AAR's Kerry Glazer, TUPE does not deter brands from switching agencies, it just complicates the process.

In addition, a winning agency may demand compensation from the client if it opts to make transferred staff redundant.