Key insights from IAS Masterclass

The first IAS Masterclass for the year has taken place at the Institute of Directors Southern Africa (IoDSA) in Sandton on 23 January. The session focussed on helping agencies understand the challenges marketers face to ease collaboration and partnerships between agencies and marketers going forward.

6 Feb 2018

Nikki Munsie, business director at the IAS.

Here, Nikki Munsie, business director at the IAS, talk us through some of the key insights derived from the recent masterclass.

Helping agencies understand 2018's marketing challenges

Leigh Andrews 16 Jan 2018

An investible relationship

How agencies can better work with marketers can all fall under one all-encompassing theme:

Client: Agency relationships – Agencies need to reframe the way they see the relationship – an investible relationship.

What does an investible relationship mean for marketers?

When you partner you invest time – you talk a lot, have continuous and deep conversations, have a deep understanding of the business issues and commercial realities.

It’s about proactivity, visibility, constant contact, depth of knowledge, depth of understanding, strategic insights.

Agencies need to invest in demonstrating value-add and metrics to show real ROI – what are some of the pieces of research agencies can invest in to demonstrate success – partnerships are about shared ownership – take ownership of performance to demonstrate value and how the work has driven results.

Marketers are becoming a lot more analytical in order to drive revenue growth – agencies need to understand the analytics, business metrics, insights behind the data – everything must have a business outcome.

“A” team and “B” team scenarios – pet peeve for marketers – “A” team must be present and visible ongoing and at all levels so as to prevent buyer’s remorse.

Relationships should be built at all levels – understand who the key decision makers are throughout the organisation – not just those at the top of the organisation.

Client service should be more of a strategic skill than a project management skill – less order taking and more strategic and business discussions.

Turnover of staff is key to the relationship – churn does put agencies at risk – but this can be overcome if agencies are a high-performance partner from a measurement perspective.