Wendy Gower-Blake
Only 3% of publishers agree that agencies are maximising the value and potential of its sell-side partners, according to a Publisher Pulse survey by consultancy WeGrow.
Publishers surveyed included Seven Network, Nine Network, Network Ten, SBS, ARN, SCA, Nova, News Corp, oOh!media, JCDecaux, QMS, Val Morgan, and MiQ with 435 respondents.
The survey found key concerns across both behavioural and process improvements, including issues with communication, feedback, time, culture and strategy divide.
"Our Agency Pulse survey found that so many agencies are now time poor, they require media salespeople to show up prepared, curious, and with responses tailored and on point," said WeGrow Founder, Wendy Gower.
"Through the work I do, and the surveys conducted, I now have a really unique lens on the success markers of agency and publisher relationships - that are all structurally unstable."
More than 10% of all comments highlighted issues with accessibility and responsiveness and 52% saying the ability to provide feedback, good and bad, as a top three characteristic of agencies that have a strong relationship with publishers, along with briefing and transparency.
Gower said agencies will see success if they focus time and effort on addressing and finding solutions to complaints.
"Agencies are acutely aware that ways of working with publishers can be casualties of this ‘busyness’ , deprioritised to meet more immediate commercial pressures and demands from clients and teams. The findings of this survey reveal a roadmap to improvement," Gower said.
"Agencies that prioritise publisher relationships; by doing more than meeting the basics in collaboration, feedback, briefing, responsiveness, and transparency, will secure a disproportionate share of energy and opportunity from their partners. This can make a substantive difference to the campaign outcomes for an agency’s clients.
"Publishers are also often discreet advocates or detractors for clients in new business pitches, so harnessing these insights could be lucrative for agencies – not just to extract maximum value from the day to day and in turn for client campaign outcomes – but potentially more significantly in driving new business opportunities.
"While there are existing feedback mechanisms in the market that are excellent, none offer publishers a platform to share their completely unfiltered views. The more than 3,500 associated comments paint an informative picture of both the challenges and the opportunities.”
Mark Fairhurst, chief revenue officer at oOh!media, recognised the value of feedback to strengthen partnerships.
"Partnerships are built through positive shared experience, and great partnerships deliver great work. In any partnership, taking time to pause, reflect and share feedback on what's really working and what isn't makes good business sense," said Fairhurst.
"The WeGrow Publisher Pulse has provided a platform for media owners to do just that.
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