Setting agency objectives and evaluating performances
Peter Doyle
Advertising agencies oversimplify the concept of performance. Management need to meet multiple objectives and to satisfy various stakeholder groups. Because these goals partly conflict, outstanding performance on only one performance criterion is unbalanced, and more likely to signal longer run vulnerability than viability.
The current financial squeeze facing most advertising agencies is forcing top managements to reappraise their long-run strategies. The collapses of such agencies as WPP, Saatchi and Yellowhammer demonstrate the fragility of the hyper-ambitious strategies of the 1980s. Being 'top of the league' seems to have become a better...