Agency Turnover

What is the top reason for dumping an agency? Lack of innovation.

On January 14th the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council released the findings of their annual Marketing Outlook survey. Below the positive findings regarding spending for 2008 was a piece of information I found interesting about agency turnover.

Marketers reported significant agency turnover in 2007 with advertising (41 percent), web design (38 percent) and public relations (26 percent) firms most frequently changed in 2007. Special markets (e.g. ethnic), demand generation, hosted services/solutions and sales promotion had the lowest incidence of substitution.

The need for global scale and size did not seem to be a factor in agency switches. Rather, performance issues were the most prevalent reasons for swapping out agencies in 2007. These included:

Lack of innovation

No value-added thinking

Poor creative

Quality of work

Results and deliverables

Posted under marketing