Agencies: Weed Out the Bottom Feeders...

I am fortunate to have some loyal clients for whom I place and purchase broadcast media. Those clients give me complete continuity of care, otherwise we don't work together in a media buying relationship. Any media buyer knows how important continuity of care is for both the agency and its clients.

Talk to any ad agency people, and they'll tell you the frustration of prospective clients creating a climate whereby the agency is lead to believe that his/her team will handle the media buy. Then, the agency discovers that the prospect was merely using the agency to gather the objective, third party data, all so that advertiser could try to negotiate a better rate directly with the network/station. Of course, the broadcast sales people will always oblige to the direct advertiser. Why? In most cases, sales people don't even want to deal with savvy ad agency people for two reasons. One, the salesperson's' commissions usually are far higher with no ad agency involved, and two, the direct advertiser will raise far fewer objections to a media package than a savvy media buyer would raise. In other words, a rationale' buying decision sometimes can be tossed out the window when a charming salesperson meets an advertiser directly, one on one...

So how can agency people overcome such wild goose chases? For almost a decade, I have been charging prospects a fee to meet me to discuss broadcast. The fee weeds out "users." After all, the advertisers who are serious have no problem paying a fee for superior advice, especially since the fee is prorated into any advertising the prospect chooses to have me implement (for up to six months).

Frankly, I have never understood why advertisers are so concerned with an agency or media buyer making a commission. After all, the agency and/or buyer, in the vast majority of the cases, is not paying a higher rate than an advertiser would pay on her/his own. If an advertiser can buy an ad for $10 net and the agency can buy the ad for $10 gross, who cares what the agency commission is? If the agency handles the buy, the advertiser probably actually got more value/assets for each ad dollar; got a truly objective media buy/plan, and even spent less time in the minutia that media plans entail.

To prospective advertisers: Do your homework, and have a great broadcast media buyer-strategist handle your ad placement. You won't pay more, and you may even pay a little less-yes, a little less even after the agency takes its commission. Furthermore, I tell my clients that if I suspect that a network's or station's rates are too high, I will gladly run the ad money through another agency, an ad agency which may wield more clout with management than I do, especially when advertisers' best interests are at stake.

www.brucehorlick.com, www.radiostorybooks.com