Category Archives: resource rate calculator

In response to the question of “What is a cynic?” Oscar Wilde wrote “A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing”. When it comes to agency benchmarking it is hard not to be cynical. Recently Michael Farmer, author of best seller industry book “Madison Avenue Manslaughter” and Executive Chairman of TrinityP3 published an article highlighting the shortcoming of agency benchmarking, specifically agency cost benchmarking: Why cost benchmarking is the waterboarding of the advertising industry. How do we stop the manslaughter and increase agency productivity and performance? The first step is to stop cost benchmarking and move the focus to performance. Here is why. Continue reading →

There is a distinct market trend occurring in the way marketers and advertisers are compensating their agencies and suppliers. Along with the Agency of Record (AoR) we are seeing a trend away from retainers to project based fees. This is due to a often long held belief by many marketers that the retainer does not deliver value, while most agencies believe that marketers are getting more then their pound of flesh under these arrangements. But many companies are finding the process of transitioning from retainers to project fees a frustrating one that will often not deliver the increased value, lower cost or greater agility they expected. In our experience this is because they will often make some fundamental errors in the process, largely due to a lack of consideration as to how the current remuneration model works. Continue reading →