Too Many Cooks Spoil The Soup

It’s an old adage, but still true today.  When there are too many people involved in trying to do the same thing, the final result will not be good.

For many advertisers, the number of agencies they currently have often feels like too many.  It may be justified at times.  Some companies have hundreds of agencies around the world.  With the explosion of digital marketing, many new forms of marketing have evolved.  Traditional agencies may not have the expertise as some new advertising methods are hyper-specialized.

Without proper management and governance advertising rosters can grow beyond manageable levels. Evaluating your advertising roster and getting supplier alignment is of growing importance to many large advertisers.

Assessment

It is important to find out all the marketing needs of your organization.  Talking with stakeholders and executives across all business units is vital to fully identify everything that goes into marketing your company.

You have to conduct a review of all current processes and determine what is working and what needs to change.

Using an outside third party is beneficial in that it helps to reduce biases and removes any pressure from internal politics.  This gives a truer picture of the business, the challenges and the opportunities.

Model

An agency model is only as good as the advertiser’s ability to manage the roster and make it operational.   Most advertisers design good agency strategies but fail to get the desired result.

By continuously monitoring and enforcing their strategy they end up losing valuable time and effort.  This is costly to the organization and inefficient for all concerned.

Your agency roster should be designed to support your strategic objective.  For example, you may want to reduce the number of small tactical agencies or consolidate budgets with your highest performing agencies.  Your roster has to align itself to what you want the outcome to be.

As your business changes and your objectives change your roster should change as well.

No one-size-fits-all or single model works for every company or corporation.  Every situation is unique and requires an experienced eye to evaluate and make recommendations.

Execution

Identify agencies that can best fulfil your needs and enhance any skills you already have.  Look for agencies that are highly collaborative and can be flexible as your business requirements evolve.  Look at what capabilities you have in-house.  Are there pieces of the marketing puzzle you would like to bring under more direct control?  This could be a new hire or an agency resource inserted directly into your business.

Be an attractive client.  Agencies are becoming more selective about what clients they work with. Make sure that your business ethics are in place and  that you treat your agencies fairly and responsibly.  If you expect collaboration and fairness from the agency you should exhibit those tendencies in your dealing with them.

Work with agencies of high ethical standards who can show evidence of working collaboratively with other clients and agencies.

Having open two-way dialogue as part of an ongoing evaluation process lets you monitor progress and identify snags or problems.