Agencies don’t have a lot of bench strength.That’s mostly because they can’t afford to. Clients have gotten their procurement departments more involved in agency compensation over the past decade. This procurement movement helped in several respects and hurt in others. It helped reduce some inefficiencies and pushed agencies to be more forthcoming in their fee proposals. It has failed to create a lot more value for the client. It has failed because both agencies and marketers focused on reducing the costs of the inputs rather than increasing the value of the output. In order to reduce costs, agencies have had to reduce the total compensation for their staff. The dynamic has been similar to the effect of salary caps in professional sports. Now there are only so many stars an agency can afford to keep on the roster. So you get what few stars you can afford, and fill in the rest of the team with role players, or unproven rookies who you hope will rise to the occasion. This has pushed agencies to manage their clients like the old vaudeville spinning plate routine. They try to get all the plates spinning, and only give their attention to the ones that are really starting to wobble. The A-team is dispatched to get the plate spinning again, and then as soon as that’s done, they rush to the next wobbler. So for any marketer wondering whether they have a first-rate team dedicated to their business, the answer is probably no. They can’t afford to.
The Ryan Report 