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Global Marketing Management Update

27 April 2022


Welcome to the April edition of TrinityP3’s e-news

Agency rosters have only become more complex with the growing number of channels for marketing communications. And while the increased popularity of in-housing and the consolidation of services in holding company solutions may appear as a remedy for this complexity, the fact is it has made it worse.

There are now more possible roster models than ever before. It is not just a choice between consolidation or not. There are an infinite number of options in between. And marketers are increasingly challenged to find the right model to maximize the value of their marketing communications spend while also maximizing performance. Today, we are exploring some of the issues, including why marketers collect too many agencies, why there is no ‘one size fits all model”, and the biggest challenges in rationalizing your agency roster. We look forward to hearing what you think.

Six reasons why you have more agencies than you need

We provide a very popular solution called Agency Roster Alignment where we analyse and map the current roster against an advertiser’s strategic needs, spend and satisfaction with the incumbents. Some of the 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.

There is no best practice agency roster structure any more

We often see an industry trend where marketers add agencies to the roster, then react to the size and complexity of the roster, and then consolidate and shed the agencies they believe they no longer need. In discussions on roster structure, it is common for someone to ask what the ideal agency roster is – or more specifically, what is ‘best practice’ for an agency roster. The answer to this – ‘it depends’. Read more on this here.

Agency roster alignment for an automotive advertiser

In this case study for a major automotive marketing company, 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.

Consider 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 effect in developing and delivering value. Further out are the other suburbs of less direct value but nevertheless important, and at the fringe are the least valuable suburbs (agencies, suppliers and vendors). Read more on this 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 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, as well as the industry. Read more on this here.

Most in Demand for this Month

The TrinityP3 team helped our clients on the following projects last month:

  • Rationalising an agency roster for a large financial services marketer
  • Assessing an online marketer’s scope of work and requirements and advising on options for changing the balance between agency and in-house delivery
  • Benchmarking global agency remuneration for an international destination marketer
  • Optimising agency roles, resourcing and remuneration across a telecommunications marketer’s agency roster
  • Developing a framework for briefing, assessing and managing creative work for a global fashion brand