Recently, MediaBizBloggers published "Agency Reviews Have Reached Unprecedented Proportion" by Mike Drexler. The lead sentence trumpets the need for agencies to be concerned about a survey that determined 64% of advertisers plan to review their agencies in the next year. The results of the report by Advertiser Perceptions were labeled an "industry problem" with cost and transparency the key factors and the "fast paced, rapidly changing digital environment" a contributor. I don't agree. While those may all be contributory factors, I believe the flurry of media agency reviews is due to a larger, broader and significantly more meaningful evolution of the client-agency relationship. We are witnessing the results of the advertiser community's subtle but steady shift to accepting their agencies' resolve to change the client relationship paradigm. By insisting on being contractually limited business partners, agencies created the very model about which they are now concerned.
The New Advertiser-Agency Paradigm
