Strategy and Planning is a lot of the hard yards in agencies. It requires skill and experience. The job of turning reams of data and opinion into simplicity that will drive a strategic advantage for your client. The current money making machine that underpins agencies makes a mockery of the craft of strategy and planning.
The solution to effective agency-client relationships is to move to a commercial model based on outcomes. This way, both the client and agency can share in the success and be rewarded to focus on achieving it together.
Holding groups are using the scale of their trading power to buy up media wholesale and sell it back to a client, at a higher price than they bought it for. This is a backwards step for transparency and trust.
Simplify the commercial model of agencies by shifting the commercial model from being based on the size of the media spend to the value of the outputs an agency delivers across the end-to-end process or strategy, planning, buying, reporting and measuring.