How Agencies Frame Partnership in a Procurement-First World

ANA AFM: From agency sessions to procurement take-aways

For us at RAUS Global, who are long time (read 19 years) veterans of the ANA Advertising Financial Management Conference (AFM), it is always a fun and interesting moment when the (somewhat brave) agency executives take the stage in a room full of marketing procurement, marketing operations and the odd finance lead. On top of the Brand side audience, there is ample representation from consultants who live off the brand-agency mistrust, non-transparency and murky waters. At RAUS Global, we have experience from the Brand side, the Agency side as well as the Auditor side, so we have all our radars up. Join us in our assessment of the 2025 agency sessions.

This year, two “agency only’ sessions were on the agenda — The Martin Agency’s honest “Be careful what you ask for: what agencies won’t tell you when negotiating” and Dentsu Creative’s “the most pressing issues on the minds of the agencies”. CEO Abbey Klaassen opened up with a rallying cry to “retire working vs. non-working” budgets — and this provided a useful window into how agencies want to engage with procurement and finance.

Stop Squeezing the Talent Lemon Until the Math Stops Mapping

The Martin Agency reminded us (again) that you can’t demand award-winning creative, senior diverse talent and always-on social for the price of a junior production retainer. Eventually “the math stop mapping,” and everyone — brand, agency and, yes, procurement — loses. However, they do have a point. And they provided insightful advice on how to solve the issue.

• The ask: Prioritize. Decide what really moves the business before fee negotiations start, write it down and let the scope follow the money.
• The proof-point: 90% of Martin’s business is still AOR-based because long-term partners share pain, pivot together and (when necessary) over-deliver without a change-order frenzy.
• Procurement takeaway: Do the homework before you schedule the negotiation. Understand what your stakeholders are looking for. Sometimes it can be savings, often it is other goals that drive them. Then marry the wish lists across marketing, finance and the organization to come up with a realistic plan.

Partnership ≠ Situationship

When marketers treat agencies like “situationships,” churn accelerates: senior talent migrates, ROI goals slide back and the next pitch cycle kicks off sooner than anyone budgeted for. Agency leaders ask procurement to measure value in years, not quarters, and to remember that cheaper hourly rates rarely equal cheaper outcomes once re-work, onboarding and morale are factored in.

• The ask: Measure success on the business outcomes we create together, not on the last-mile hourly rate. Agencies are ready to put “skin in the game” when the goals and the upside are shared.
• The proof-point: Long-term agency teams routinely over-deliver when budgets tighten, stick with brands through crises (eg. 9/11 and Covid) and even turn down better-paid rival briefs to protect the client relationship.
• Procurement takeaway 1: Shift the negotiation lens from “lowest hourly cost” to “best total value.” Senior, specialized talent may cost more per hour but delivers ROI exponentially faster.
• Procurement takeaway 2: Replace penalty-heavy contracts with carrot-based incentive schemes tied to shared KPIs; studies show agencies perform better when rewarded for growth rather than punished on savings.

Retiring the “Working / Non-Working” Split — Finally

Dentsu’s Klaassen argued that the classic working vs. non-working split was built for a world of one-way TV spots and passive consumers. Today, a single organic TikTok that spawns millions of stitches can outperform a $10 million broadcast buy — yet it still gets labeled “non-working” in many budget decks.

• The ask: Budget for creative capital — attention, engagement and cultural impact — alongside paid media.
• The proof-point: System 1’s UK study shows dull ads cost an extra £10 million in media just to match the share-of-voice of an emotionally resonant campaign. Media efficiency is impossible without creativity that lands.
• Procurement takeaway: Link spend to value, not channel. Build ROI models around attention, engagement, and incremental sales so creative, production, and media are judged by contribution, not category. Redefine “value” together with Marketing, Finance, and your agencies so the full content supply chain is resourced to drive growth — no matter which ledger line it used to sit on.

Re-engineering the Content Supply Chain (with People, not Just Tech)

Behind the “AI will save us” headlines lies a messier reality. Dentsu detailed how omni-channel personalization now demands hundreds of thousands of assets — far beyond the capacity of traditional production models.

• The ask: A hub-and-spoke workflow that fuses agency and client collaboration, layers sustainability calculators on production, and treats AI as an enhancer — not a head-count eliminator.
• The proof-point: Even a five-product global campaign now generates 600,000+ permutations — untenable under legacy production models.
• Procurement takeaway 1: Mandate one source of truth. Require a shared workflow (e.g., fused Workfront) with audit-ready data on asset reuse, spend, and CO₂ so savings and sustainability claims can be verified in real time.
• Procurement takeaway 2: Pilot “Human + Tech Equivalent” (HTE) pricing tiers that reward agencies for efficiency uplift (e.g., cost-per-asset, speed-to-market, carbon reduction) instead of pure FTE hours.

Shared Themes Both Shops Hammered Home

• Transparency beats tricks. Whether its principal media buying (called out in multiple sessions) or black-box AI fees, (some) agencies know procurement will surface the margin sooner or later. Better to co-design transparent models.
• Procurement take-away: This is an area where procurement has to stand firm. Whether it is principal media or lack of transparent production bids where the “conflict of interest” worry is real, we have to have solid access to audit, review and challenge margins.
• Value > Cost. Both agencies framed procurement’s real super-power as unlocking growth, not shaving pennies. That means compensating ideas that earn media, not just the hours spent making them.
• Procurement take-away: We must work with our leaders within supply chain, finance or wherever we report within the corporation to educate them on the types of savings that exist and can be expected within the marketing category. Value and effectiveness are both large drivers of “savings” in this category.
• Sustainability & DEI aren’t line items. From Dentsu’s carbon-lite production tools to Martin’s insistence that diverse senior talent costs real money, ESG priorities must be ring-fenced in contracts, or they evaporate under rate-card pressure.
• Procurement take-away: Manage your contracts. A Master Service Agreement (MSA) is not a signed piece of paper in an (electronic) drawer. It is a living, breathing document that sits on your desk or in your IPAD for quick reference and annual updates are managed at every annual scope discussion and review.

What This Means for Marketing Procurement

1. Audit your language. If your briefing deck still says “non-working,” you’re signaling you value placement over persuasion.

2. Link fees to outcomes — creatively. Consider tiered retainers tied to brand lift or share gains rather than pure staff hours.

3. Fund the change-management line. AI tooling without training, process redesign and incentive realignment is stranded cap-ex.

4. Champion long-term commitments where value warrants it. The quickest way to light cash on fire is to re-pitch every two years because the last scope was under-capitalized.

The Bottom Line

At the end of the day, marketing procurement governs the marketing investment dollars and agencies utilize the same marketing dollars. No one can be surprised that there is a healthy tension between the two entities. It is good that there is a division between Church and State.

However.

Agency partners are continuing to attend the ANA AFM in large numbers to continue the dialogue with marketing procurement and brands. They are laying out pragmatic approaches to solve for the AI-accelerated, content-hungry future. By working together, we will be solve common ground issues while standing strong on some key aspects that marketing procurement is employed to defend. Going forward, we need to identify and then invest in the right talent and tools, measure what actually builds equity, and respect the partnership beyond budget cycles. Do that, and — yes — the good agencies will still run through brick walls for their best clients (even if the walls are now made of algorithmic bid requests and modular content blocks).