Former Maxus chief executive David Gaines has argued marketers increasingly only want one point of contact when it comes to agency relations, which will lead to agencies outsourcing services more and more.
Gaines, who recently joined data agency Edentify as managing partner, has argued that in an increasingly complex and fragmented media environment, marketers are looking for greater simplification.
He said many marketers no longer want to have five or six points of contact with agencies, and argued many are looking for a “one-stop shop model”, which will mean that larger agencies will perform the mediator role that marketers used to play.
As a result, he argued agencies will have to outsource more specialist services than they currently do in order to act as the single point of contact for marketers.
Gaines told AdNews: “If you look back five years ago, clients were happy to have four or five or six partner agencies looking after different things, but when we speak to marketers now, the pressures of managing that portfolio are very difficult, particularly when you're dealing with all the egos. Marketers might like to think of themselves as conductors but sometimes it can be more like zoo-keepers.
“So for a lot of reasons clients have been saying they want a one stop shop to help keep some of that pressure away. More complexity means the need for more simplification. But an agency can't have all that resource on hand, so the bigger agencies are going to have to start playing the role that clients used to play.
“Agencies will house the basics and all the fundamentals, with good smart generalists with enough knowledge to know when a specialist needs to be brought in.”
For the full interview with Gaines, pick up the latest edition of AdNews (5 October), in print and on iPad.
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