Where's your agency/client relationship?

+ A look at when to fire your agency.

I believe there is one overriding question you can ask yourself that will provide great insight into what you should do: Has my agency stopped challenging me?
Getting Paid to Think

You'll note that I said "stopped" challenging, not "started." I'm not suggesting that an agency should challenge your authority. It's your money and your brand, and no matter how strongly it feels about its own opinion it should never forget that. But the fact that you've got precious resources on the line is precisely why an agency should consider challenging your thinking part of its job description. After all, creativity requires thinking differently. Thinking differently requires risk-taking. And risk-taking is challenging.

If your ad agency isn't regularly making you feel uncomfortable, it's not doing its job. It may come to you with smart creative executions that nevertheless make you nervous because "I've never seen it done it this way before." They may push you to experiment with unproven tactics so that you don't get left behind in the frenetic world of new media. They may challenge you to reexamine your strategic approach altogether. Whatever the nature of the challenge, an agency that makes you think is taking the initiative to think on its own. And that's what you're paying it to do.

Read the whole thing for more.

It is an interesting way to think about the client/agency relationship. I do think that there are many clients who don't want to be "challenged". But that's another story. ;)