media update’s David Jenkin put some questions to managing director of IAS and co-owner of SCOPEN Africa, Johanna McDowell.

Please can you give us a brief introduction to IAS and its mandate, as well as SCOPEN Africa?

IAS is an agency search and selection company. It helps marketing clients find and select their ad agencies across all disciplines. It also helps agencies position themselves in the market place.

SCOPEN is a research-based marketing consultancy that conducts marketing communications research all over the world in 12 countries, including South Africa.

SCOPEN is a Spanish company originally and researches more than 3 000 global CMO’s regarding their agency requirements.

So a bit about the survey – how was it conducted and how big was the sample?

In South Africa last year, Agency Scope researched 70 CMO’s in face-to-face in-depth interviews, 200 agency professionals in online surveys, and 15 procurement specialists also via online surveys. A total of 205 client agency relationships were examined.

The survey identified strategic planning, the agency’s team, capacity of innovation, and creativity as the leading criteria for selection: why do you think those attributes are so important?

In today’s business world, strategic thinking is a scarce resource within client marketing departments. They rely on their agencies to provide this level of thinking – and most of all to help the marketer understand their consumers and customers better.

The agency team is also critical – most clients leave their agencies due to poor service, which means that the account handling team is under huge pressure to deliver.

Innovation and creativity are essential components that all marketers will look for in their agencies – especially with the variety of channels of communications that are now available.

Were there any surprises in the survey results?

One of the surprises for me was how South African agencies don’t market themselves aggressively to prospects. The number of cold calls that marketers receive from agencies is very low in comparison to the rest of the world. The great thing about SCOPEN is that South Africa is compared to 11 other markets – most of which are also emerging markets like us.

What could be the reason for award wins featuring so low on the list of criteria? Could it be indicative of a preference for smaller and agiler niche agencies?

No – clients are really not impressed with the way in which agencies parade their awards. The awards must be related to real business growth for the client, then the client is impressed. This is a global trend, by the way. In the UK, clients are even less impressed by agency awards than they are in SA.

What are marketers generally looking for in a creative agency’s team?

Innovation, consistency, high-quality thinking, and an understanding of the consumer are paramount. Speed to market is also critical – clients are not prepared to wait weeks for a creative solution anymore.

SCOPEN states that pitching is the most commonly used process for selecting a new agency partner but often lacks tailor-made ideas. Please explain what they mean by a lack of tailor-made ideas?

This refers, particularly, to credentials presentations. In a pitch, there is normally a brief which the agency responds to and, therefore, the client receives specific presentations that are relevant. But in credentials presentations, agencies could be smarter and tailor their presentations to try and “speak” to the client needs. These then work.

For more information, visit www.agencyselection.co.za.

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Interested in the agency selection process? Read more in our article, Three reasons why clients fire their PR agency.