4A’s Guidance | Post-Review Feedback

The 4A’s guidance directive, Post-Review Feedback, has been developed by the 4A’s New Business Committee to help inform the agency community of best practice relating to conducting routine and formal agency assessments following participation in all major agency reviews.

Agency new business efforts represent a vital research and development investment for the marketing services industry. In any R&D environment it is important to explore new innovations, test, measure, learn and then recalibrate the product or service offering based on in-market customer assessment. Surprisingly many agencies do not have formal protocols for consistently obtaining learning feedback from their new business agency-review activities.

The 4A’s Post-Review Feedback guidance includes three recommendations:

1. Agencies should conduct a self assessment immediately following the final review meeting.
2. Agency search agreements between the advertiser and agencies participating in the review should document the client’s commitment to provide the agency with frank, timely and relevant post-review feedback.
3. All agencies should use a standardized post-review feedback questionnaire to help guide the efficient collection of key agency search performance information.

The 4A’s Post-Review Feedback guidance directive also includes the recommendation that the industry utilize a newly developed 4A’s Agency Review Feedback Questionnaire in order to provide better understanding on where the agency performed well and where the agency could have improved effectiveness during the agency selection process.

The 4A’s recommends that agencies consistently and formally assess the agency’s performance immediately following the agency’s participation in any significant agency review.

The 4A’s Post-Review Feedback guidance directive and the 4A’s Agency Review Feedback Questionnaire are available in the Agency Search-Information Center section of the 4A’s website.

We urge members to carefully review the 4A’s patent risk management guidance, consult with your attorney and reevaluate the agreements that your agency enters into with your clients.