March 5, 2013
Marketers rank strategic insights as their most important criterion when reviewing new agencies, according to results from an RSW/US survey, placing more emphasis on an agency's strategic capabilities than on its creative ideas, chemistry, and cost. The RSW/US survey is one of several to share that result (see here and here for examples). It also finds that marketers' top criteria line up with how agencies believe they should be evaluated. Read more »
October 30, 2012
About 8 in 10 agencies surveyed by RSW/US [pdf] believe that the number of opportunities for new business are about the same as last year (34.4%) or have increased (44.8%). But, that doesn't mean that getting new business is any easier. In fact, more than 8 in 10 say that obtaining new business is either as hard (47.6%) or harder (34.9%) than it was last year. So what has been most effective for generating new business? Asked to select their top 3 marketing tools, most agencies chose referrals (59%), networking (57.4%), and business from existing clients (57.4%). Read more »
October 11, 2012
Clients are taking a closer look at their agencies, and their reviews are not motivated by cost considerations, but instead by business performance issues. And to pass the test, agencies need to demonstrate creative and strategic aptitude, according to Avidan Strategies survey results revealed in a recent Forbes article. Indeed, clients are most often looking at the quality of creative ideas and strategy (90% of respondents) when evaluating agencies. This is consistent with CMO Council survey results from January, in which multinational marketers were most likely to say they look at strategic contributions when reviewing or evaluating agencies. Read more »
August 7, 2012
US marketers are beginning to favor agencies with a national or global reach, according to the Q2 Pearlfinders Index, which is based on interviews with more than 4,000 marketing executives across all industries. In Q2, where marketing decision-makers specified a need for agencies of a particular size or geographical reach, 69.6% of all such opportunities sought larger agencies with a national or global reach, compared to 30.4% that sought regional or niche shops. Read more »
June 26, 2012
71% of client-side marketers view a single collaboration system as a differentiator for an agency over its competition, per findings [download page] from a Central Desktop survey released in June 2012. That may be because a majority of marketers who have used these tools report improved project management processes (60%) and faster project completion (53%), with 44% also citing a benefit of decreased time spent reporting. Read more »
June 15, 2012
Marketers may be shifting their advertising budgets to digital media, but 3 in 4 aren't using exclusively digital agencies for their social or digital needs, and the majority of those don't foresee using them in the near future, according to June 2012 survey results from RSW/US. Read more »
January 23, 2012
When reviewing and evaluating agency relationships, the majority of multi-national client marketers look at strategic contributions (57%) and business value created (56%), according to [download page] a CMO Council survey released in January 2012. Other key considerations include agency efficiency and effectiveness (50%), market impact and success of campaigns (42%), and creative excellence (42%). Yet although senior marketers appear to have an array of methods by which to evaluate their relationships, slightly more than two-thirds do no have solutions or hosted services that improve the agency benchmarking and evaluation process. Read more »
January 11, 2012
Three-quarters of marketers rank specific sector experience between a 7 and 10 on a 10-point scale of importance (with 10 being the most important) when looking for a new agency, according to [download page] a survey released in January 2012 by RSW/US. In fact, the highest proportions of respondents rank sector focus a 10, 9, or 7 (all at 20%) in importance when looking for a new agency, compared to only 8% combined ranking it a 4 or lower.
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January 10, 2012
A greater proportion of marketers than agencies believe that spending on traditional media such as direct mail (25% vs. 17%), print (22% vs. 8%), and radio (18% vs. 3%) will increase this year as compared to 2011, with the proportions expecting spend to increase on TV relatively on par, according to [download page] a survey released in January 2012 by RSW/US. Read more »
May 5, 2011
Unhappiness with an existing agency's strategy or thinking is the leading reason US marketers bring in competing agencies for review, according to data compiled in March 2011 by agency/client relationship advisers RSW/US. The "2011 New Business Report: A Client's Look Ahead at Agencies" shows that 40% of respondents cited this factor, followed by unhappiness with creative (37%).
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