Dive Brief:

• ID Comms, a media consultant, released a new study of global marketing, media and procurement professionals that found marketers and media agencies both agree that media decisions remain procurement-driven as reported by MediaPost.
• Both groups also reported that media decisions should be based on strategic marketing factors rather than based on costs.
• The report stated that advertisers and agencies think advertisers view media as a “complex headache” and focus on media buying and efficiency instead of planning and effectiveness as well as not viewing media agencies as strategic partners.

Dive Insight:

The report comes at a time when relationships between brands and agencies are under pressure for a variety of reasons, including agencies' struggles to meet marketers' needs as digital plays a bigger role as well as related issues around a lack of transparency in agencies' business practices .

The ID Comms report illustrates another aspect of the challenging relationship between brands and agencies. On the brand side, a key takeaway is the need to place more importance on strategic media planning and less focus on the bottom line costs. Both groups of respondents agreed that marketers are performing below expectations in areas of media capability including setting clear KPIs, ROI strategy and having internal media groups.

However, the report doesn't let agencies off the hook either, with both groups of respondents agreeing that agencies are performing below expectation on areas such as identifying relevant data insights; integrating owned, earned and paid media; providing neutral planning recommendations, and lacking a culture of media innovation.