Study: How marketers are viewing their media agency partners

Most brand marketers (65%) believe traditional media agencies do not have the technology expertise that their organisation requires to maximise media investment.

In-housing media investment talent and technology is rising to the top of the APAC marking agenda, said a recent international study including 150 senior marketers in the US, UK and APAC countries commissioned by Kepler. 

The research carried out by Kepler to assess changes in the relationship between brands and agencies in the age of tech platforms and in-housing found 94% of APAC marketers included in the study say they are "currently or planning to enhance our in-house technology when it comes to media investment" compared to 78% of respondents in the US and 82% in the UK.

Globally, senior marketers said managing and optimising relationships with tech platforms (55%) and strategic investment planning (55%) were their largest media challenges today. Five years ago, data collection and optimisation (62%) was listed as the primary concern (down to 41% today).

The study revealed that establishing strong working relationships with tech platforms has been a consistent problem for around half of brands – 51% said it had been a problem five years ago. Responses suggest that media buying/trading has now become less of a concern – around 42% said they felt it had been a problem five years ago compared to just 14% now.

Meanwhile, embedding in-house talent within a brand’s organisation has risen-up the scale of challenges, with around 40% citing it as a struggle now (21% five years ago). Taken as a whole, this data suggests a significant movement in brands’ priorities away from simple media buying and trading towards the more hands-on challenges of in-housing and building relationships with the tech platforms.
When it comes to APAC, more than two-thirds of APAC marketers (71%) in the study say they are already or plan to use a mixture of in-house media technology and talent, as well as external agency support.

The idea that brands could take all of their media investment operations in-house also appears to be gaining traction amongst APAC marketers – 68% of those asked say they plan to eventually take all aspects of media investment capability in-house. This compared to 45% of US marketers and 52% of those based in the UK.

A key driving force behind media in-housing appears to be the growing influence of technology platforms – 71% of APAC marketers asked (73% overall) say greater in-house technology expertise was required to partner with technology giants.
Nearly two-thirds of APAC marketers in the study (61%) say their media agency partners could improve on "sharing learnings and consulting with our in-house teams". This compared to 43% in the US and 42% in the UK.

From media buying clout to data capability

Overall, the study found strong evidence that brands are redefining the role of the media agency with data capability becoming more important than media buying scale.

Most brand marketers (65%) believe traditional media agencies do not have the technology expertise that their organisation requires to maximise media investment. At the same time, 89% of marketers said strong data and technology engineering capabilities are important for selecting a future media agency partner.

Meanwhile, a clear majority, 61%, said that media agency talent and operating models are not evolving fast enough to deliver the support and service that their organisation requires.

The mixture of roles media agencies are being asked to carry out is diversifying. Although it is still important, media buying is just one task of many, with brands now seeing data capability as even more important than managing media investments. The majority of the senior marketers (61%) use their media agencies to collect and optimise data, reinforcing the finding that data utilisation is now the defining capability brands seek in agencies.

While 57% said media buying or trading was amongst the roles their media agencies covered, the same proportion cited "managing and optimising tech platform relationships". Meanwhile, more than half (53%) said they used agencies to embed their talent within their own organisations. Other roles included "strategic investment planning" (51%) and "development of our in-house media technology" (43%).

Today’s agency partners look more like a marketing consultancy who can help brands implement data strategies as well as buy and optimise media against goals.

The majority of senior marketers tasked with media investment oversight believe data optimisation rather than media buying clout is now the most important criterion determining media investment performance.

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