Survey claims just 1 in 5 Aussie marketers think their agencies are ‘extremely effective’
Miller
Only one in five Australian marketers ranks their agency in the top tier of “extremely effective” on overall performance, according to a new study.
Liz Miller senior vice president of marketing at the CMO Council, who conducted the annual survey across APAC in conjunction with Adobe, told Mumbrella the statistic is a sign of why many marketers are looking to increasingly take keys parts of their marketing services, such as digital, inhouse.
“It does concern me but it doesn’t surprise me”, said Miller. “I think what we are seeing with the agency reaction is more to do with marketers redefining why they are bringing agencies on and what value they are looking for from their agency partners.
“I think it is very different today than it was five years ago. Digital has sparked a new thinking but it is a frustration that has been there for some time.”
The Digital Marketing APAC Performance Dashboard survey found, among the 114 senior Australian marketers polled, only 22 per cent felt their agency was extremely effective, 65 per cent were moderately effective and 13 per cent were poor.
Commenting on the increasing push towards digital and programmatic buying inhouse Miller said: “People are wanting to go towards a more programmatic and personalised approach.
“But the content that is being delivered isn’t really resonating and not delivering a robust level of performance. So the brands see it as hit or miss.
“What marketers want from their agency is perfection every time but that is an unrealistic view and in defence of agencies I don’t think it is a fair view to be saying to your agency you have to be perfect 100 per cent of the time.
“However, in an age where marketing’s budgets are being slashed they have to be able to justify why perfection is required.”
Miller’s statements came as the CMO Council/Adobe survey showed that marketers were becoming more digitally savvy and more effective in how the structured their business for the digital world and focus their communications on the customer experience.
On the growth of digital and how they are using programmatic Miller said: “A couple of years ago what we saw were big moments of failure where we only looked at predictive analytics and said now we know who the consumer is let’s take the same content we had for the mass market and then then just stalk people around the web with shoes you bought a week ago.”
“That is the ultimate experience fail but what we are now seeing is a more sophisticated approach.”
Nic Christensen
Perhaps the survey should also have asked what agencies think of clients. I doubt the numbers would be any different. Moreover, I smile when I see media and creative suppliers being lumped together as ‘agencies’. Clients rubbed their hands with glee when creative and media ‘unbundled’ back in the 1980s. Now, they’re paying the price because what they got rid of are the generalists, people who got the big picture, not just some narrow aspect of media buying or digital technology. Instead, clients have been forced to adopt that role themselves and very few of them have the breadth of understanding or experience to manage it. Certainly not 1 in 5.
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