Guess who gets left holding the bag?

Joe Mandese

Joe Mandese, in his regular column from Madison Avenue, comments on the recent U.S. Association of National Advertisers' conference in New York which discussed the perennially contentious issue of agency compensation.

Guess who gets left holding the bag?

Joe Mandese

Why is it that the most sophisticated marketers in the world do not seem to understand the fundamental value exchange between customers and the people who sell them stuff: you get what you pay for. That is certainly true in the world of consumer marketing, and I imagine it must also be true in the field of business-to-business marketing – even if the business happens to be, well, marketing.

That was not all that evident when some of the world's biggest advertisers and their agencies met in New York last month...

WARC subscribers can sign in to keep reading

Not a subscriber?

Schedule your live demo with our team today

WARC helps you to plan, create and deliver more effective marketing

  • Prove your case and back-up your idea

  • Get expert guidance on strategic challenges

  • Tackle current and emerging marketing themes

We’re long-term subscribers to WARC and it’s a tool we use extensively. We use it to source case studies and best practice for the purposes of internal training, as well as for putting persuasive cases to clients. In compiling a recent case for long-term, sustained investment in brand, we were able to support key marketing principles with numerous case studies sourced from WARC. It helped bring what could have been a relatively dry deck to life with recognisable brand successes from across a broad number of categories. It’s incredibly efficient to have such a wealth of insight in one place.

Insights Team
Bray Leino

You’re in good company

We work with 80% of Forbes' most valuable brands* and 80% of the world's top top-of-the-class agencies.

* Top 10 brands