When chaos calls, will your partnerships thrive or dive?

How business partnerships and team collaboration must evolve to overcome a wide range of new and complex business challenges between brands and agencies. — Read our article posted on Forbes — — Read our article posted on 4As — The world hasn’t come to an end, but at times it feels as if we’re getting […]

10 Best Quotes About Innovation and Change for May 2021

Discover 10 most inspiring quotes about the state of advertising from industry thought-leaders such as Bob Liodice (President & Ceo ANA), Todd Newman (VP Innovation Keurig Dr Pepper), Sir Martin Sorrell (CEO S4 Capital), brought to you by Bruno Gralpois of Agency Mania Solutions. Includes short comments.

10 Best Advertising Quotes of April 2021

Discover 10 most inspiring quotes about the state of advertising from industry thought-leaders such as Marla Kaplowitz (CEO 4As), Ivan Pollard (Global CMO General Mills), and Marc Pritchard (Chief Brand Officer Procter & Gamble), brought to you by Bruno Gralpois of Agency Mania Solutions. Includes short comments.

Transactional Relationships Are Out

Featured on ANA Maestros — Read the published ANA article — We’ve heard it before: Don’t treat your agencies as mere vendors, unless, of course, a commodity is what you are seeking. But the label “vendors” shouldn’t be such a dirty word. In principle, “vendors” are delivering services that have reasonable commercial value and getting […]

4A’s Relationship Management Best Practices Guidance

Featured on 4A’s — Read the published 4A’s article — Considering the time, energy and expense marketers spend conducting reviews—and that agencies spend on developing new business—it’s critical for both partners to ensure a long and fruitful relationship. Having a powerful relationship-management program can help you get your relationship off to a good start and […]

Indexing Agency Value to Drive More Effective Use of Talent, Improving Performance and ROI

Rethinking Agency Performance: The Value Index: Let’s face it: brand advertisers are far more savvy than they used to be. They set targets to quantitatively measure the effectiveness of their agencies. They know how to evaluate the health of their agency relationships and the quality of engagement by conducting regular qualitative performance reviews. Advertisers have […]

Adopting Smarter Ways to Conduct Agency Reviews and New Business Pitches

Ending the Traditional Pitch Mania: I’ve seen it all, it seems. I’ll bet you have, too. The endless RFPs. The RFPs from hell. The poorly run ones. The ones filled with regrets and disappointments on both sides. If you are an advertiser, you’ve probably run many agency reviews in your career, hoping to find the […]

The Demise of Decades-Long Agency-and-Client Relationships

Featured on AdExchanger: “Data-Driven Thinking“ is written by members of the media community and contains fresh ideas on the digital revolution in media. As the saying goes, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. When advertisers consider a review of their agency partners, they must really believe that a change […]

Advertisers, Get Off Your Agency’s Back!

Featured on The Marketing Dive: Advertisers, if you want success, it’s time to get off your agency’s back. — Read the published Marketing Dive article — You’re thinking, “But why? I’m paying them!” Yes, you foot the bill to retain a brilliant agency to extend your creative thinking and help you meet your goals, so shouldn’t they […]

CMOs Highlight Extremely Frustrating Problems as Reason for Ending a Relationship

The Breakup Letter: Studies show more than 85 percent of American adults have experienced a breakup at least once in their lifetime. Nothing like uncertainty – as we are now experiencing with the health crisis – to yield greater tension and doubts in our personal and professional lives. Nothing like heightened budget pressure and higher […]

Common Mistakes Agencies Make With Their Clients and What to do About It

  How to Drive your Client Mad By Bruno Gralpois Author/Speaker, Thought-provocateur, Client/Agency Guru, Entrepreneur, Innovator Download a print-friendly version here In How to Drive Your Agency Crazy, I shared 20 ways brand advertisers drive their agencies crazy, and in the process, sabotage their own efforts. Experienced advertisers know better; they know how to turn these […]

Five Realistic Ways to Earn Trust in Client/Agency Relationships

Trust Me (no, really!) By Bruno Gralpois Author/Speaker, Thought-provocateur, Client/Agency Guru, Entrepreneur, Innovator Download a print-friendly version here Trust me (if I may ask) when I say that “transparency” has been the key word of choice in 2017. The issue of trust in client/agency relationships is so deep that it even led the newly elected […]