• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, March 24, 2015

Speaking at the AAAA's Transformation Conference in Austin, AOL CEO Tim Armstrong isn't 100 percent happy with agencies delivering on all their hype about new methods of advertising. He gives them an A- for the talk and a Bi for execution. This, really, should be no surprise to anyone. At all. Agencies are masters in pontificating about the latest shiny new object, but when it comes to doing actual work -- well, not so much.

In another observation of the obvious, Armstrong thinks agencies do a poor job marketing themselves, saying: "From a talent perspective, from a client perspective, from a media perspective, the ongoing discussion about ad agencies and what comes up in those marketplaces in general...very little of it talks about the value proposition. There's a lot of value getting driven here that will get you better talent, get you better clients."

But despite his misgivings on agency value proposition, Armstrong still thinks marketers need agencies. He added: "The biggest misnomer that people seem to have in the agency business is this whole notion of whether or not you need an agency. The clients don't have the headcount to operationalize a lot of the stuff we just talked about in general. They'll hire their people, they'll get there, but right now they don't."

Good news for agencies, perhaps .