Six reasons why you

may have many more agencies and suppliers than you need

We provide a very popular solution
called Agency Roster Alignment where
we analyse and map the current roster against the advertiser’s strategic needs,
spend and satisfaction with the incumbents. Some of the really common responses
when we report back on the current rosters are, first, many are surprised at
the number of agencies and marketing vendors on the roster and, second, how they could have ended up in this
situation with so many agencies and suppliers. Read more on this here.

Is there any
difference between an Agency and a Marketing Supplier?

A common question we are asked is
“How many agencies is ideal for a roster?” The short answer is “As many as are
needed to get the range of tasks done that need to be done and as few as
possible”. But an interesting observation is that in this process most
marketers believe they have only 2 or 3 agencies, when in some cases we have
gone on to identify ten or more times as many. Even when confronted with the
spend data, some marketers will tell us they are just suppliers and not
agencies. Read more here.

Selecting the right
agency roster structure to achieve strategic business alignment

It is amazing how often a
conversation about tendering for a new agency occurs without any substantial
reference to the overall roster structure. The desire to appoint a new media
agency, a new creative agency or a new digital agency is often made in apparent
isolation. I had a discussion with a Marketing Director about the desire to
review all of their “major” agency suppliers – this being the three agencies
where almost 90% of their budget was currently invested. This opened the
conversation beyond simply “who
is the right supplier and how do we find and choose them?” to a
conversation about “what is the right
roster structure to deliver our strategic requirements?” Read more on this
here.

The City Model for
structuring and managing your agency roster

A city usually has a Central Business District where the larger core financial businesses can be found. Surrounding this CBD is a succession of suburbs. In the same way we can
apply a framework to an agency roster model. In the heart of the model is the
CBD where the brand team and the valuable brand stakeholders reside. Closest to
the brand team are the suburbs (agencies, resources, disciplines) of most value
to developing and delivering value. Further out are the other suburbs of less
direct value, but important suburbs (agencies) and at the fringe are the least
valuable suburbs (agencies, suppliers and vendors) Read more on this here.

Automotive agency
roster alignment – A case study

The client’s roster of agencies had reached
twenty-strong, with no discernible operating model and with each agency
competing with the others for budget and influence. The marketing team was
working over capacity simply to manage the agency relationships and maintain a
minimum level of communication and collaboration across the roster. Read more on this case study here.

The biggest challenges you will
face when rationalising your agency roster

At some point most marketers
managing a significant sized budget will question if they really do need all of
the agencies and suppliers they have collected on their roster. Getting your agency
roster right will improve the
performance of your agencies, increase the value of your advertising
budget by eliminating duplication and bottlenecks, and allow you to focus your
investment and optimise delivery. But no matter how you go about rationalising
your agency roster you are bound to meet some challenges both within your
organisation and externally from the agencies themselves and the industry. Read
more on this here.