Anja De Landsheer
The increase in complexity of the marketing and communications landscape often goes hand in hand with an increase in the number of agency partners to help brands create and implement their plans.
Optimising performance and efficiency in working with multiple agencies is a must. A lot of advertisers experience a reduced impact of their marketing budget and efforts from:
- Decreased relevance of the current agency mix due to changes in needs
- Lack of complementarity between the agencies
- Blurring of roles and responsibilities of each
- Duplication of roles, costs and man-hours
- Excessive fragmentation of the marketing budget
- Decrease in brand consistency and coherence
In order to create a balanced agency ecosystem, we recommend the following roadmap:
STEP 1: ANALYSIS OF EXISTING NEEDS
Based on the annual scope and the associated output of each agency partner, an overview should be made of the different roles the advertiser needs to successfully execute the marketing plans.
The complete overview of all roles needs to be consolidated with the pre-drawn existing/future needs and mapped out.
STEP 2: OPPORTUNITY GAP ANALYSIS
The audit allows the rapid identification of possible duplications (similar output by different agency partners), gaps (needs that have not yet been included in any of the partners' existing scopes) and inefficiencies of roles.
STEP 3: OPTIMIZATION ROSTER
The choice of the most successful agency collaboration model depends on the needs of the advertiser. Important elements are: the brand's strategy, the number of brands, the scope, the necessary human resources and skills (depending on the internal situation and team structure).
STEP 4: OPERATIONAL MODEL
The optimisation of the existing agency roster/model usually goes hand in hand with an optimisation of the way of working. Internally and externally. The focus is always on creating synergies that benefit the brand and the budgets (energy/cost versus result).
PitchPoint has a broad experience in building balanced agency ecosystems. Do you want our support in this complex exercise? Contact Anja at anja@pitchpoint.be or 0491 15 89 65.