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Date & Time
Starts: Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 9:00am
Ends: Thursday, April 8, 2010 at 2:30pm
Location
Prager and Fenton
2381 Rosecrans Avenue, Suite 350
El Segundo, CA 90245
Agenda
9-9:30am Networking Breakfast
9:30-9:45am Introductions and review of agenda
I. PROCUREMENT & AGENCIES - FINDING THE PROPER BALANCE
Ark Advisors has done extensive work to gain insight into agency attitudes towards marketing communications procurement, including a survey of 50 agencies. The results, though not unexpected, are overwhelmingly negative. Ark believes that agencies are notoriously poor sellers of services and may not be properly equipped, from both a process and personnel standpoint, to work with procurement. But marketers share some accountability as Ark has also witnessed a disturbing trend where marketers are seeking to purchase services for fees below cost. This session will discuss the friction points between agencies and procurement and offer marketers ideas to improve the relationship.
Speaker: Russel Wohlwerth, Principal - Ark Advisors (Ark Advisors is a management consulting firm that focuses on issues facing corporate advertisers and their marketing communications partners. They help advertisers optimize their relationships with their agencies and maximize the effectiveness of their own marketing operations.)
II. MAXIMIZING THE VALUE OF YOUR AGENCY AUDITS
The days of merely auditing your agencies for contract compliance should be a thing of the past. The most effective reviews have evolved from mere compliance to focus on marketing risk management and include a hard look at practices and processes at both client and agencies. These reviews avoid being contentious as agencies are given a voice to help improve client behavior. We'll take a look at case studies of national advertisers from various industries to highlight both the issues and benefits to the entire company of this new approach.
Speaker: Bob Siegal, Director, Management Advisory Services - Prager and Fenton (Prager and Fenton is a public accounting firm that offers customized and comprehensive solutions for advertisers looking to mitigate risk and increase all manner of compliance, transparency, accountability and operational efficiency from their agencies, vendors and internal operations.)
III. CHALLENGING AGENCIES TO REDUCE EXPENSES
In ANA's most recent "Recession Survey"(www.ana.net/recessionsurvey) the vast majority of marketers are identifying cost savings and reductions in their current marketing and advertising efforts. The #1 way marketers are doing so is by challenging agencies to reduce internal expenses and/or identify cost reductions-employed by 75% of marketers! This will be an open forum to discuss tactics and strategies, as well as agency response, of challenging agencies to reduce expenses.
Facilitator: Bill Duggan, Group EVP - ANA
IV. OTHER BUSINESS
1. Benchmarking - Is there an issue or challenge that you want to "put on the table" for feedback from your peers?
2. Topics for Future Meetings