Revamping your agency roster for 2021? How to find and integrate new partners

Many marketers also discovered that they were missing important skills in their agency roster. Changes in consumer behavior, both in terms of media consumption and retail behavior, combined with a new business, environmental and social context, demanded a radical rethink.

2021 is the year to act on those needs. Some are already taking action, working to identify new suppliers in the areas where they now feel under-resourced.

Typically, these have ranged from direct-to-consumer (DTC) capabilities such as subscription and loyalty agencies, a heightened role for e-commerce, CSR, influencer marketing and low-cost content creation executors.

Global skincare brand Aesop, for example, has just signed up Havas CX, its first global consumer engagement agency.

Elsewhere, one of our automotive clients recently offshored key production and operations tasks, achieving savings while also adding a consolidated regional production and operations agency to the roster, providing consistency and efficiency for the markets it serves within the region.

Similarly, another leading global luxury company, which is constantly striving for the best creative resources capability has restructured its roster and sourced additional resource to provide alternative creative options, including publishers, freelancers and crowdsourcing.

In all these cases, the need for new capabilities isn’t a short-term tactical fix to satisfy the needs of a particular campaign, but instead a long-term strategic response to changing business and consumer needs that coronavirus has accelerated.

The challenge for other brands in a similar position is how they find these new partners and integrating these new capabilities into their roster?

First, finding them. As this is a new skill, it is unlikely that your teams will have the experience and agency landscape knowledge to run a pitch for this kind. Working with an external consultant would be advisable but for brands that do decide to do this in-house then there are a number of things to consider.

• What does good look like? Be clear about the criteria for selecting the agency.

• What’s the right pitch process? How will it be managed and how does it need to be different to your standard agency pitch?

• Is everyone agreed? Ensure marketing and procurement are aligned on the agency role and governance.

• Do you know what you want them to do? Define the scope and set an appropriate budget that will attract the best candidates.

The second challenge is how any new agency capabilities fit within the existing roster.

Budgets aren’t infinite and are shrinking for many. Marketing organization will also have to ask what they are going to stop doing and what will be the impact on scopes of work and role for existing agencies on the roster. This process needs to be managed carefully to ensure that inter-agency collaboration and integration remains a feature of the roster.

The obstacles don't end there, of course. Every agency needs to be measured and rewarded in a way that drives your business and aligns them with your goals. For new disciplines such as influencer marketing, traditional measurement criteria will not be appropriate.

So, brands need to set clear KPIs to show that the work is effective and convinces Finance and other senior stakeholders that you are getting value for money.

This needs to be clarified at an early stage and, on a day-to-day working basis, the new agency needs to be quickly integrated into performance measurement reviews to ensure that any behavioral or process issues, on either side are picked up as soon as possible.

Another area that will need to be managed is scope creep.

With new and possibly innovative disciplines and capabilities, there is often a tendency for many of marketing teams to want to use the new agency, going above and beyond its original purpose. Having a clearly segmented roster and a roster management tool or mechanism, with clarity on what each agency is to be used for, is essential.

Following the turmoil of 2020, 2021 is about formalizing the adjustments and changes that were necessary to rapidly respond to a changing context last year.

Making these changes a success means effectively integrating new agency capabilities into the roster. All parties – marketers and agencies – need to be clear about any new agency’s role and function in the revamped mix.