• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, November 21, 2019

The World Federation of Advertisers and OxfordSM are out with a new report on integrated-marketing communication efforts.

One of the more intriguing findings is that while the holding-company agency model has raised high expectations, “it doesn’t appear to deliver better integration, and performance gaps remain significant.”

The report, “Designing for Integration,” is based on a survey of more than 20 multinational companies with a total global ad spend of $32 billion.

It found that for most WFA members, “the overarching goal is to be able to deliver campaigns seamlessly across all channels from a simple common brief: fully integrated communication.”

Respondents with a holding company model rate themselves as having greater performance gaps versus others across nearly a dozen benchmarks, including global campaign implementation and delivery, testing and segmenting and targeting.

In-housing remains a trend on the rise, according to the report, which found more than 70% of those polled have plans for additional in-sourcing of marcomms capabilities in the future.

Among the report’s recommendations is that in-housing capability should be considered from both an expertise building and cost-reduction perspective. Marketers should “have a clear view about the qualitative impact on marcomms and agreement on the priority for long term, internal capability build and ownership.”