Agencies Need To ‘Grow Some Teeth’

Agencies should take a
more “proactive” role in fighting their corner at a time of increased
disruption in the industry, while also seeking to rebuild trust with clients.
Mat Baxter, global
chief executive of Initiative – an agency within IPG’s Mediabrands unit –
discussed this subject at the 4A’s (American Association of Advertising
Agencies) 2019 Decisions 20/20 conference.
“Agencies need to flip
from being passive to being much more proactive,” he said. (For more, read
WARC’s in-depth report: Agencies need to “grow
some teeth” to rebuild trust with clients.)
“We need to tackle
some big things. Agencies let themselves be punching bags too often. We need a
really strong will to fight the fight when it needs to be fought. I don’t
necessarily think we do that very well as an industry.”
An example, for
Baxter, is pushing back if attempts to win or retain business come with
unreasonable expectations. “Just look at the pitching situation,” he said. “I
commit to saying, ‘No’ to clients who ask me to do ridiculous things in
pitches.”
Similarly, Baxter
continued, the time agencies must wait to receive remuneration is onerous in
the extreme. “We’re now being asked to work on 120-day payment terms. All these
things are crazy,” he said.
Baxter’s message to
the 4A’s forum: “Grow some teeth and be like the ANA [Association of National
Advertisers],” the client-side trade organisation that has pushed for greater
transparency
throughout the marketing ecosystem.
In fact, trust – a primary ANA focus – is “the single most important thing
advertising agencies need to get back. Without trust, without clients trusting
what agencies do for them, all of these other things are fanciful dreams.”
For agencies, Baxter
offered, regaining trust is requires recapturing the notion of “giving truly
objective advice that is in the client’s best interest. That’s the cost of
entry for a good relationship. But I think that [this] trust has eroded.”
Credit: WARC