The ACA has launched the ACA AGENCY LOCATOR™, an online tool that will change the way in which marketers search for agencies, while making the process more time- and cost-effective.
Mike Gendel, group MD for the Gendel Strategic Marketing Group and chair of the ACA, conceptualised the ACA AGENCY LOCATOR™, and did so in order to level the playing field for all agency members of the ACA. “We needed to find a way to ensure that marketers had access to information on smaller, entrepreneurial agencies as well as larger global groups when they were seeking to find a new agency,” he says.
The ACA AGENCY LOCATOR™ allows marketers who are looking for agency services to search for and shortlist advertising and communications agencies before or during the pitch process. Essentially, the online tool provides a list of ACA member agencies. These member agencies account for 95% of SA’s total measured adspend. Marketers are able to search for agencies that meet their requirements, based on their own list of criteria.
Gendel says the list provides what he terms “Level 1” information on all member agencies. “This is basic information such as size, location, number of branches, whether the agency is local or international, among other factors,” he explains. “It allows marketers to make a shortlist of agencies that would meet their needs in terms of basic factors that are honestly and unemotionally presented online. By the time it comes to actually meeting with the agency, the client will already have narrowed the list down considerably and will be looking at the more intangible factors, such as chemistry and cultural fit.”
By eliminating the agencies that are not suitable from a level one perspective, a great deal of time is saved for all parties, which ensures the pitching process is more efficient. It also introduces a phased approach to pitching, by allowing clients to create a shortlist before they start meeting with agencies that meet their requirements on a basic level. According to Gendel, the list creates a sensible approach to the search for agency partners, with the online agency information satisfying the needs of procurement, as it addresses issues such as BEE ratings. It is then up to the marketer to meet with eligible agencies to deal with the softer issues.
The ACA AGENCY LOCATOR™ is an intelligent system, based on complex algorithms that weight the importance of certain criteria against others. Because marketers enter their own criteria online, they can make their search as broad or as narrow as they like, simply by expanding or reducing the information they input. “We created a number of fields based on the questions that agencies are asked most consistently by marketers during pitching,” Gendel says, pointing out that the tool is much more complex than simply matching key words. Ultimately, marketers making use of the online tool should find they are able to forge relationships with the agencies that offer the best fit for their needs.
The big take-out: The ACA AGENCY LOCATOR™ has been launched to save time and money for agencies and marketers, as well as increase the efficiency of the pitching process.