Clients Asking Agencies to be Cost Efficient

By Bill Duggan

ANA recently fielded the sixth edition of our “Recession Survey,” a survey initiated in the depths of the recession in 2008 to understand how the economic atmosphere is affecting client-side marketers.

84% of marketers say that they are challenged with identifying cost savings and reductions in their current marketing and advertising efforts. Marketers were then asked how they plan to reduce costs and expenditures.

Only 17% of marketers surveyed said they plan to reduce agency compensation, a significant decrease compared to past surveys.  However, 52% surveyed said they plan on challenging their agencies to reduce costs internally.  So, instead of reducing agency compensation, marketers are asking their agencies with finding ways to reduce costs on their own. 

Agency compensation has always been a topic of keen interest in ANA meetings during my twelve year tenure here.  But perhaps many clients have squeezed all that they can out of agency comp and are now asking agencies to share the responsibility of being cost efficient.