It’s time to stop discounting our industry’s most valuable assets

Warren Buffett famously said “Price is what you pay; value is what you get.”

The longstanding practice of bundling top agency talent as “free” value-adds in retainers has fundamentally devalued the agency’s most critical asset. This pattern appears repeatedly in pitches; leadership teams positioned as complementary resources rather than premium offerings. The intent seems clear, but the practice has systematically undermined what should be the agency’s primary differentiator: the expertise and strategic thinking of its leaders.

The irony is stark. The very people who built the agency’s reputation, who possess the relationships and institutional knowledge clients actually want, become afterthoughts in pricing structures. This not only erodes margins but signals that senior expertise isn’t worth paying for, a message increasingly difficult to reverse once established.

An industry unlike any other

In almost every professional services sector, senior expertise is “the product” and it’s paid for accordingly. Law firms, accountancies, and management consultancies make partner time scarce and valuable. Senior involvement signals strategic importance and quality assurance. And yet our creative and media agencies compete on who can bundle it in, weakening the industry’s entire value proposition in the process.

The in-housing equation

With senior talent so thoroughly undervalued, it’s little wonder clients increasingly view in-housing as a cost-effective solution. While cost reduction rarely starts as the stated objective, it inevitably becomes a primary driver. Clients see junior-to-mid-level agency staff managing their daily operations and think, “Why pay premiums when we can hire the same people directly?”

The truth is, they’re overlooking an agency’s most prized assets — and over time we’ve taught them to do it. By bundling the creative director who solves brand challenges, the senior strategist who repositions the product, and the client leadership team who navigates crises as “free”, senior talent becomes invisible in cost comparisons. Clients evaluate what they think they’re buying (junior execution) against internal or lower-cost alternatives, because procurement’s frame of reference excludes the senior strategic guidance they’ve actually been receiving.

AI: The final reckoning

AI will only accelerate the reckoning. Its first casualties will be junior-to-mid-level account work, the very tasks clients think they’re paying for. As automation trims this layer, clients will expect fee reductions. Agencies, meanwhile, will face shrinking returns while their most valuable strategic and creative minds remain undervalued, with no benchmark left for their true worth.

A critical rebalance

Agencies have rarely faced a clearer case of being hoisted by their own petard. They built a pricing model that values the replaceable while devaluing the irreplaceable. And addressing it won’t be easy. It means telling clients, “That senior expertise we said was free? It never was and it’s worth far more than you think.” It’s a near-impossible conversation to deliver at a time when AI-driven efficiencies are expected to reduce overall costs.

Time for change

Nonetheless, it needs addressing — and now. Breakthrough thinking has never been more important, especially in a potential world of AI-generated slop. But our industry can no longer afford to give away the expertise that drives this breakthrough thinking. We must repackage agency output and finally recognise Buffett’s principle: price and value are not the same thing.

Clients already understand this. Now agencies must too.

Jen Davidson, Managing Partner at Tumbleturn Marketing Advisory, has deep experience across client, agency and media publishing environments.