A resource before there is a brief.
Liberty protects most of its creative work in-house. The value of an external partner starts when the team reaches a market, capability or question it cannot sensibly solve from the inside.
Outcome: Two-year agency contract
The starting point
Liberty was exploring a brand activation in the United States. It had the ambition, but not the cultural intelligence or creative network on the ground to know where to start.
I wanted market knowledge for the U.S. I don’t have the cultural intelligence, and I don’t have the creative networks.
There was no signed-off budget and no pitch process ready to run. DCA was useful first as a brainstorming partner, connecting Liberty with talent on the ground and giving the team a clearer view of how different agency options compared.
Human judgement around the map
DCA’s market mapping can use technology to keep track of agencies, talent and specialisms as they shift. The judgement that turns that landscape into a useful recommendation remains human.
AI is not enough to really understand all the moving parts.
For a heritage brand, that discernment matters. Liberty wants fresh thinking, but any external partner also has to understand the strategic and cultural value that makes the brand distinctive.
Useful even when the answer is “not now”
The U.S. exploration did not end in a signed contract. Shifting import taxes and new regulations changed the risk profile and Liberty decided not to make the investment at that moment.
That is part of the value of the relationship. DCA can help a marketer explore, understand the market and reach a better decision without needing every conversation to become a pitch.
- Outside eyes A strong in-house team can still need an external view when the territory, medium or market is unfamiliar.
- Current capability The useful question is who is right for this problem now, rather than who happens to be in an old contact book.
- Safe to explore Marketers can start a conversation before the brief is ready and without being pushed into an agency selection process.
Why Liberty keeps the conversation open
We are all time-poor. Someone has made it easy to scope out agencies and is calling the process for us — that alone is valuable, brief or no brief.
Liberty and DCA remain open to exploring future opportunities in the U.S. and beyond. The relationship is useful because it can begin with market intelligence and evolve into agency selection only when the business decision is ready.
Liberty Ltd, London
