• by June 7, 2001

A recently released report by Harris Interactive, as part of its 2001 Advertising Agency Reputation Study, found that 37% of Advertising Clients who spend $5MM or more believe that medium sized agencies are likely to do the best work. 9% of those same clients believe that a mega-agency can do the best work, down from 11% in 1998.

This Harris Study is conducted bi-annually to enable agencies to compare current positions with other agencies, respond to specific needs of their customers, and develop an understanding of advertisers’ views on issues facing the industry such as:

- Importance of specific qualities in evaluating an agency
- Use and usefulness of search consultants
- Use and experience of performance based compensation
- Opinions on agencies offering strategic communications advice
- The impact of the Internet on advertising budget allocation and agency selection

The study found the top five attributes used to evaluate a potential agency were:

  +---------------------+------+------+------+------+   |                     | 2000 | 1998 | 1996 | 1994 |
+---------------------+------+------+------+------+   | Effective creative  |  73% |  77% |  79% |  76% |   | Understands         |  62% |  61% |  60% |  55% |   | client's business   |      |      |
|      |   | Careful with money  |  56% |  56% |  60% |  51% |   | Responsiveness      |  51% |  51% |  55% |  50% |   | Creative flair      |  47% |  43% |  47% |  40% |
+---------------------+------+------+------+------+  

"Creative is still king, with over 70% of the respondents saying that creative work that is effective in selling product is ‘absolutely essential’ in importance when evaluating an agency,”said Judy Ricker, vice president at Harris Interactive.

- The use of performance based compensation remained flat from 1998 with only 27% of those surveyed saying that they used it.
- Only 10% use search consultants, but the influence of those consultants increased substantially.
- 56% of those who used consultants said the consultant influenced their decision to switch or work with a previously unknown agency
- up from only 26% in 1998.

The study used traditional telephone and Internet-based questioning. All respondents worked in the advertising and/or marketing fields and had decision making or influencing involvement in the hiring and firing of ad agencies.