Remuneration: How Did We Get Here? - 4As

Compensation Model

The disconnect between the cost of work and the impact delivered is becoming impossible to ignore.

Agencies increasingly contribute beyond execution—shaping the brand, brand demand, customer experience, innovation and growth strategies, and using data and intelligence to help determine where marketing investment goes.
At the same time, AI is changing both what agencies can contribute and how work gets done. It expands what agencies can analyze, create and influence, further weakening effort as a proxy for value.

Yet remuneration conversations remain disproportionately focused on the cost of producing marketing rather than the value marketing creates.

A better approach is a flexible pricing-based combination of models that benefits both sides. Agencies should be fairly compensated for the expertise, capabilities and value they bring and the commercial model should support the brand's objectives and create incentives for both parties to generate greater value together.

The fault line is a growing disconnect between where agencies create value and how that value is recognized in compensation. The industry needs to move beyond effort as the primary measure of worth and develop remuneration models that better reflect the expertise, capabilities and impact agencies bring.

Decoding Compensation Models & Implementing the Right Model

This compensation toolkit breaks down the models, trade-offs and a framework to help brands and agencies find the right fit. Includes a model evaluation worksheet.

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"Our greatest value is not in the creation of assets, but in envisioning what assets should be created or what should be done."
Dean Broadhead
broadhead.
"The biggest threat to agency value isn't AI. It's a commercial model that still prices judgment by the hour."
Bruno Gralpois
Agency Mania Solutions