• by Maarten Albarda , Featured Contributor, May 2, 2025

In January of 2017, I wrote about the feedback from a World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) Global Marketing Procurement closed-door meeting. I was allowed to write about some general findings and implications. At that time, marketers and marketing procurement leaders defined their top-three issues as (1) agency ecosystem issues: mentions of either pitches and/or contract re-negotiations; (2) marketing productivity in politically uncertain times. At the time we were concerned about the Trump government V1.0 and Brexit, so (3) transparency & trust – speaks for itself.

The sad thing? Well, we are now in 2025, and the issue list is still very much the same. A few months ago, Flock and the World Federation of Advertisers delivered a review of the issues and opportunities in its report “The great balancing act: marketing procurement trends and insights.”  And this week saw the release of The Internationalist Intelligence Brief called “Client-Agency-Marketing Procurement relationships: Alignment at the surface, but many concerns run deep.”.

Little progress has been made. The same issues keep on keeping on. So rather than repeating them all, I am going to focus on things I suggest marketing procurement and broader marketing leadership should consider changing. I’m probably the eternal optimist, but without believing in and striving for a better future, what is there?

OK, that was a bit deep. Let’s be pragmatic!

Given the evolving marketing landscape, here’s how I recommend marketers shift their agency services requirements. Marketers might buy LESS of standardized production and adaptation (can you say AI?), services easily replaced by in-house teams (especially in areas like data analysis, martech, and basic creative execution), and time-and-materials billing for automated tasks (AI, again!).   

Marketers might buy MORE of high-level strategy and creative ideation; specialized data analysis and insights; complex technology integration and management; and integrated media and creative planning.

So, more high-end strategic services, and less commoditized and AI- or tech-enabled services. As I’m writing about marketing procurement, let’s examine if this shift will lead to significant savings for advertisers -- and subsequently, to loss of income for agencies.

Not yet.

While marketing procurement reviews and efficiencies in execution can yield savings (can you say “pitch”?), several factors complicate the picture. In-housing requires significant ongoing internal investment in talent and technology, which may offset external savings. More importantly, the high-value strategic, creative, and technical services marketers increasingly need often command premium agency fees. Investing in new technologies and managing a more complex marketing ecosystem also demands budget. This would also necessitate a new set of KPIs to evaluate the performance of the agency on changed deliverables.

Therefore, while spending on certain types of agency services might decrease due to efficiency and structural changes, the total investment might remain stable or even increase -- but redirected toward higher-value, strategic deliverables. The dependence on agencies isn't disappearing; it's transforming -- evolving from reliance on execution to reliance on specialized expertise and strategic guidance.

The real question is whether agencies can make a compelling case to their clients to buy these higher-end services from them. Perhaps it’s easier to just keep taking  principal media income and continue the race to the bottom.