At first glance animals, children, and ad agencies might seem like an odd bunch to group together, but they have more in common that it might first appear, for example: Dog owners spend hours training their pets, and indeed they want them to perform well: to come when called, to sit when instructed, even attack - if it’s that kind of dog. Parents want the best for their children. Who wouldn’t want their progeny to perform well at school? To learn, to progress and to achieve t

The whole issue around client/agency transparency seems a little opaque. There appears to be an almost blanket expectation of total disclosure by marketing services suppliers to their clients, and that this should be considered normal, reasonable and fair. But as is the case in all good debates, we should first define our terms. What is transparency? The common expectation among advertisers is that transparency means the open disclosure by the agency of pretty detailed inform

Marketing procurement continues to get a lot of flack from the agency community, not least for heavy handed negotiation practices over the levels and terms of fee payments. There are lots of contentious issues that contribute to the cyclical debates between these two parties: What is a reasonable overhead calculation? What is a reasonable profit? How much should a middleweight creative team cost? How many billable hours are there in a year? Spreadsheets are calculated and rec

There is an inextricable correlation between an ad agency’s talent and the value the agency can create for their clients. It’s the primary reason many of the older agencies had the names of their founders above the door or recognized by their initials. These figureheads like Bernbach, Ogilvy and Burnett were not just trying to appeal to new clients as their reputations grew, they were also beacons to the industry’s best talent. There isn’t a machine (yet) that can develop eff

The laws of investment apply to marketing investments as much they apply to investing in starting a business or buying government bonds: you cannot increase your return on a reduced investment without increasing your risk. To put this statement into a context for the challenge facing marketers, and assuming past behaviour is a predictor of future behaviour, then the uncertainty facing British businesses in the face of Brexit will encourage many businesses to batten down the h

(This article was first published in Campaign Magazine 23.2.2012) Since clients and agencies made the departure from commissions, it was inevitable that agency fees would steadily get screwed down. Commission-based remuneration, although largely arbitrary, represented a ratio of investment in message to the media it would appear in – it was a value judgment. As soon as hours became the currency of strategy, creative and account service time became a measurable commodity with