When we audit corporate-agency partnerships, we frequently ask marketing leaders to rate their satisfaction. Every so often, we get an answer wrapped in a shrug of resignation.

In the corporate world, an 85% sounds like a solid ‘B.’

In high school, it might have landed you on the honor roll.

But in the high-stakes, fast-moving arena of modern marketing and agency performance, 85% isn’t a safe baseline. It’s an invisible tax on your brand. It means your relationship is broken – you just haven’t felt the full impact of the crash yet.

Here is why an 85% relationship is actually a warning sign, and why settling for “good enough” is costing you more than you think.

The 15% Blindspot

When an agency is hitting 85%, they are delivering the bare minimum of the contract. They show up to meetings, they check off the deliverables, and the creative isn’t inherently broken.

But look closely at what lives inside that missing 15%:

When you settle for 85%, you aren’t buying partnership; you are buying a vendor.

The Cost of Complacency Equilibrium

The most dangerous part of an 85% relationship is its stability. It’s what we call Complacency Equilibrium. Because it isn’t an outright disaster, it doesn’t trigger an immediate Request for Proposal (RFP). It doesn’t force a hard conversation.

Instead, it quietly erodes your market position.

While your agency is giving you a comfortable B-grade performance, your competitor’s agency is working at 100% – re-imagining their media mix, weaponizing new AI agents, and aggressively capturing market share.

In marketing, you are either moving forward or falling behind. Standing still at 85% is just slow-motion regression.

Why Do We Settle?

Marketers usually tolerate the 85% mark for two reasons: fear of the unknown and the exhaustion of the pitch process. The thought of writing an RFP, sitting through endless chemistry meetings, and onboarding a new team feels like a professional masochism. So, we make peace with mediocrity.

But transformation doesn’t always require blowing up the contract and launching a massive, disruptive agency search. Often, the fix starts with intentional listening.

Getting Back to 100%

An 85% relationship is rarely one-sided. It is usually the result of a breakdown in communication, misaligned financial incentives, or shifting client expectations that were never clearly articulated.

If your partnership has drifted into the ‘good enough’ zone, it’s time to intervene before the rot sets in:

The Bottom Line

Your brand, your budget, and your growth goals deserve a partner that is fully invested. If you look at your roster and realize you’ve built a collection of “just fine” partnerships, it’s time to name the problems you’ve been avoiding.

Because at 85%, you’re not saving a relationship. You’re just delaying the termination.

Fixing an 85% relationship takes a proven framework. At Listenmore, we specialize in architecting and managing RFT processes that turn stagnant vendor dynamics into high-performing partnerships. Let’s start the conversation.

It is a peculiar thing to gather 20 of the world’s most seasoned agency search consultants in a single city, especially when that city is Toronto. 

We’re a reality-checking, div erse and opinionated bunch, hailing from the UK, Australia, South Africa, Ireland, France and elsewhere. We have navigated boardrooms from London to Melbourne, seen every “disruptive” tagline imaginable, and sat through enough agency credentials presentations to qualify for a specialized form of witness protection.

Yet, last week, we descended upon the 6ix for the AdForum Worldwide Summit, organized alongside the ICA, with a singular, laudable theme: “We need more Canada.” 

There is something inherently heartwarming about watching our nation’s advertising industry try to define itself. We kicked things off at the Hockey Hall of Fame, a venue that practically drips with the kind of grit and teamwork that Canadian agencies often pride themselves on. 

Standing amongst the relics of legends, it was a reminder that the best stories aren’t told through data points, but through heart and historical consistency. In a world obsessed with the “new,” there is profound power and comfort in the enduring.

The efficiency trap

We saw it all. Data-driven shops trying to prove they could predict a consumer’s mood before the consumer even woke up, and the digital-first experts who seemed to suggest brands would achieve a state of nirvana.  

As we settled into the meat of the summit, meeting a dozen agencies ranging from scrappy independents to behemoth holding companies, several key themes emerged that mirror the global anxiety of our industry:

Some nailed it. But at times it was as soul soul-stirring as a microwave dinner.

The eight-minute revelation

If there was one universal takeaway, it’s that credentials are simply too long. We sat through hours of presentations that sometimes felt like marathon sessions of self-congratulation.

Then, there was the outlier. One agency delivered their entire message in a quick eight-minute PechaKucha-style presentation. There is perhaps a specific kind of madness that occurs when a creative agency condenses its entire catalogue of work into an eight-minute window. It’s the advertising equivalent of trying to explain the plot of Inception during a sneeze. But this was fast, focused, and it went over well. Very well. 

The lesson was clear. Get in. Deliver your message. Get out. It is a strange irony that agencies spend their lives telling succinct stories for clients, yet when the spotlight turns on them, they lose the ability to find the stop-button on their own narrative.

The intoxicating secret sauce

But here is the thing about us cynical, battle-hardened consultants: We still have a “tell.” When an agency stops reciting the gospel of AI and starts talking about a problem they actually solved for a living, breathing person, the room changes. The eye twitches stop. The witness protection vibe fades.

While the presentations were (predictably) Canadian-focused, I believe some agencies missed the point of showcasing why Canada is a great solution for international assignments. But the biggest miss—the one that leaves me with a lingering ache—is the lack of soul.

Soul is the (really) good stuff. Soul is intoxicating. We tell stories to evoke emotion, trigger reaction and generate action.  

The summit was a bruising but beautiful reminder that while AI can provide efficiency, it’s a terrible dinner companion. It can’t provide the secret sauce—that messy, illogical, wonderful spark that makes a person trust a brand.

Everyone came to Toronto looking for “more Canada,” but perhaps what we were really looking for was the human spirit behind the work. 

As we head back to our respective corners of the globe, the challenge remains. In a world obsessed with the “new,” the real winners won’t just be the brave. They’ll be the ones smart enough to master the tools without being mastered by them, creative enough to find the story in the data, and human enough to keep the soul of the work alive. 

Because at the end of the day, you can’t automate a heartbeat—no matter how good your credentials deck looks.

With thanks to AdForum and the ICA for organizing the summit here in Toronto. This article first appeared in Campaign Canada on May 19, 2026

It is a curious phenomenon of the modern marketing department. We are surrounded by specialists for everything – programmatic traders who speak in riddles, data scientists who treat spreadsheets like sacred texts, specialists obsessed with the customer journey, AI prompt engineers and my favourite – the Fractional CMO – the marketing equivalent of a friend with benefits.

Yet, when it comes to the most pivotal decision a CMO can make – selecting a new agency partner there is a sudden, inexplicable urge to keep it in-house.

Let’s be brutally honest: Deciding to run your own agency search while maintaining a full-time job isn’t just ambitious; it’s frankly a bit daft. It’s the professional equivalent of deciding to perform your own root canal because you’ve watched a few episodes of Grey’s Anatomy and quite like the look of a scalpel.

The Myth of the Spare Time Search

I’ve spent my career navigating the boardrooms in London, glass towers in Toronto, surprisingly competitive coffee shops in Seoul and endless flat whites in Sydney. If there is one universal truth, it’s that a marketer’s calendar is already a disaster zone – yeah, just tell me it isn’t.

If you’re a marketer, when exactly do you plan to vet half a dozen eighty page RFP documents? Between the 2:00 PM Brand Alignment workshop) and the 4:00 PM crisis meeting about why the TikTok influencer accidentally insulted a minor deity? 

You get the picture.

The reality is, the DIY search usually follows a predictable, tragic arc:

  1. The Honeymoon: You ask your LinkedIn network for recommendations. You receive 50 messages from hungry business development directors who suddenly claim to be the only solution you should ever consider.
  2. The Deluge: Your inbox becomes a graveyard of 80-page creds deck – each one contains a slide of logos and the mandatory photo of the agency dog, ‘Barnaby’.
  3. The Fatigue: You realise you haven’t actually looked at the work because you’re too busy trying to find a time when your key stakeholders are all available at the same time because they’re too busy managing their own objectives
  4. The Panic: Exhausted and weeping into your lukewarm oat milk latte, you pick the agency with the nicest office or the one whose CEO went to the same university as your boss.

Your Reputation is on the Line

In the US, they call it betting the farm. In the UK, we’d say you’re putting your head in the noose and asking someone to kick the stool.  In Korea, they refer to it as ‘pure show-ship’ – that you know something has a 0% chance of working, but just make sure you look good.  And the best description I heard in Australia was… ‘it’s like a fire sale in a fireworks factory…’

If you run a DIY search and the agency fails six months later – which they often do when the vetting has the depth of a puddle -the blame doesn’t go to the agency. It lands squarely on you.

Selection is a skill set, not a hobby. When you DIY a search, you aren’t just risking the budget – you are mortgaging your professional reputation.

By bypassing a structured, third-party management process, you lose the critical distance required to see through the new business theatre. Agencies are remarkably good at smelling an amateur search from a mile away – they know which bells to whistle and which skeletons to hide when there isn’t a consultant there to poke the closets and check the references that aren’t on the list.  (Trust me – I know!)

An external search consultant acts as the “grown-up in the room.” We provide the rigorous framework that protects you from your own biases and, more importantly, from your own desperate desire to just “get it over with” so you can go home.

The Hard Truth

A marketer’s job is to build a brand, drive revenue, and perhaps occasionally enjoy a weekend without checking your email. A marketer’s job is not to be a procurement specialist, a contract negotiator, and a creative talent scout all at once.

If you value your reputation (and your sanity) stop trying to DIY the most expensive relationship your company will likely create. Hire a professional to find the professionals.

Otherwise, don’t be surprised when the perfect agency you found during your lunch break turns out to be a total shambles by Christmas – leaving you explaining to your C-Suite why the disruptive new campaign consists entirely of Barnaby the dog in a tutu.

Cheers to that.

For years, the black box in the agency-client relationship was usually a metaphor for opaque media margins and (sometimes) production mark-ups. But as we move deeper into 2026, the box has become significantly more dangerous.

As autonomous AI agents and generative models take over everything from programmatic bidding to personalized content creation, a risky governance gap has opened. While marketers are eager to reap the efficiency gains, few are looking under the hood to see who (or what) is actually making the decisions.

The Illusion of Oversight

Most brands believe their existing Master Service Agreements protect them. They assume that because they have a ‘human-in-the-loop’ clause, their brand safety is guaranteed.

But the reality is, the sheer velocity of AI-driven marketing has outpaced human intervention. If your agency is using autonomous agents to optimize creative in real-time across thousands of micro-segments, no human account manager is ‘approving’ every iteration. You aren’t just outsourcing execution anymore – you are outsourcing discretion.

Where the Risk Hides

The governance gap isn’t just about a chatbot hallucinating a poor post somewhere. The systemic risks are quieter and more profound:

  1. Data Dilution: Is your proprietary first-party data being used to train models that eventually benefit your competitors?
  2. Bias in the Machine: AI models can inadvertently optimize for demographics that exclude key audiences or, worse, lean into discriminatory patterns that create a PR nightmare.
  3. The Intellectual Property Grey Zone: If an autonomous agent generates a breakthrough campaign idea, who owns the copyright? If the agency can’t explain the seed of the idea, your legal department might be standing on a foundation of quicksand.
  4. Decoupled Accountability: When a campaign fails or violates a platform’s policy, the ‘it was the algorithm’ defence offers zero protection for your brand equity.

Closing the Gap

The transition from AI prompting to autonomous AI agents requires a fundamental shift in how you manage your agency search and ongoing relationships. ‘Trust me, we use AI’  never was an acceptable strategy.  So here are some safeguards to ask for:

  1. Request an AI Manifesto: Every agency in your roster should be able to provide a clear document detailing which models they use, where the data is hosted, and how they mitigate bias.
  2. Rewrite the MSA for 2026: Ensure your contracts specifically address model ownership, data leakage, and liability for AI-generated errors.
  3. Audit the Agentic Workflow: Move beyond looking at the final output. Ask to see the chain of thought logs for the autonomous agents working on your account.
  4. Prioritize Transparency Over Efficiency: A 20% gain in efficiency is worthless if it comes at the cost of a catastrophic brand safety failure.

As a marketer, your job is no longer just to judge and evaluate the creative or media outputs from your agencies – it is to audit the machine that builds it. But it’s now time to open the black box and ensure that your brand’s values are hard-coded into the agents representing you.

If you’re getting ready to search for a new agency, you may quickly find out agencies are likely being as choosy about the clients they pitch, as you want to be about choosing them. And if they’re not feeling the love early on in your process, you may find yourself being turned down.

Don’t get me wrong. Most agencies still want to grow by winning new business and would welcome the opportunity to share their credentials and talk about your business. But when clients get demanding about how much and what they want to see, or unreasonable about timelines, then things become more complicated.

Since the pandemic began agencies have had to make some tough calls. Delayed payments, canceled projects, remote working, increased workload, and unprecedented resource retention challenges have all combined to make agencies far more wary about putting more pressure on their teams and their own financial resources.

So, what should you do if you’re about to search for a new agency? Well, here are a few things to bear in mind:

Be clear about why you’re doing a search

You’d be surprised by how many marketers we meet who struggle with clear reasons as to why they’re looking for a new agency.

We hear everything from “we don’t like our (insert function here) on our business…” to “too expensive” to “we just want a change” – or (worse) – “we just want to see what’s out there”. The question about why you want a new agency is crucial because you have to establish if your issue may actually be fixable – thereby saving you the trouble of a search in the first place. Equally, a clear definition of why you want to start an agency search inevitably leads to a more focused and concise set of criteria when you meet prospective agencies.

Get the set-up right

In addition to doing your homework on yourself and preparing for the process, it’s important to help agencies know what the process looks like ahead of time.  This means:

Avoid the cattle call

With so many agencies providing individual or combined services, it can be difficult to identify and narrow down the best agencies to add to your search list – compounded if there’s internal or political pressure to include agencies that you feel shouldn’t be on your list in the first place.

Thorough preparation, a robust stakeholder interview process, and a little homework can help define not only which agencies might be a great fit – but which agencies wouldn’t be – either because of conflict or some other incompatibility with your business.  As a general rule of thumb, if you’re starting with more than eight agencies on your long-list, you need to do more homework and save yourself – and the agencies you’re talking to – wasted time and effort.

Be reasonable about your ask

Nobody should be a fan of asking questions just to tick boxes – so it’s always a puzzle when marketing or procurement teams ask dozens (sometimes hundreds – yes – hundreds!) of questions that are superfluous to the task at hand.  The faster you can get to a dialogue about your business, with smart, well considered questions, the more likely you are to determine how well-equipped agencies are to help manage your business.

Deal with spec work properly

Contrary to what might be shouted from the proverbial peanut gallery, spec work isn’t a complete no-no and the decision to request or not is up to you – not those throwing peanuts. If you ultimately decide spec work is critical for you, the key is to deal with your request properly and in our view, this means:

Agencies are pretty good at being their own watchdogs and if they have an issue with your ask, be prepared to be turned down.

Get clear about price versus value

With some procurement teams being less familiar with service-based sourcing and/or not being synced with marketing team counterparts, some procurement driven RFPs have an over-reliance on financial metrics. Evaluation then focuses on price rather than value and otherwise perfectly suited agencies become eliminated for the wrong reasons.

Whether you’re working with procurement or going it alone, define what constitutes best value for your business beyond price. If you’re looking for a ‘lowest price wins…‘ solution, you may find yourself with a choice of none.

Define your evaluation criteria

How you ensure your team evaluates agencies consistently and correctly is critical to an effective search. I’ve written before on the development of agency scorecards, but whatever approach you choose – make sure it’s not just about adding up a score. No score can give you a perspective on chemistry and whether the agency is a real fit for your needs.

Evaluating agencies on the functional aspects of their submissions or presentations can only take you so far, but defining what constitutes real value and assessing fit with your organization can be far more complex – so take time to ensure everyone on your team understands how agencies need to be evaluated and that evaluation criteria are shared with agencies.

Be respectful

Most of all… agencies who participate in a pitch process typically put their collective hearts and souls into creating the best possible submissions they can. They’ll likely be working late evenings and giving up weekends to make sure they get the best possible shot at winning your business. So, try to:

High profile brands or clients with big budgets can be an overwhelmingly tempting reason to pitch.  But at the end of the day, everyone needs to make a fair profit to make all the effort worthwhile. If you’re not prepared to be prepared to be reasonable in your asks, you should be prepared to be disappointed.









The marketing world seems to have spent the last two years obsessed with “the Prompt.” We’ve treated prompt engineering like a secret language – a sort of digital open sesame that would finally unlock the magic of AI.





But as we settle into 2026, the truth has come out: Prompts are exhausting. Constantly babysitting a chatbot to get a usable headline is just manual labour with a keyboard. If you’re still spending your morning iterating with a LLM, you haven’t found a solution – you’ve just found a very fast, slightly confused freelance writer who needs a lot of hand-holding.





The real shift? We’re firing the prompt and hiring the Agent.





The New Org Chart: Interns vs. Agents





In the old hierarchy (circa 2024), AI was the Intern. You had to tell it exactly what to do, check its work for hallucinations (the AI version of the dog ate my homework…) and then manually move its output into your workflow.





In the new hierarchy, the AI is the Agent. This isn’t just a semantic tweak – it’s a career jump.









Moving from Content Generation to Business Logic





For agencies and clients alike, the Prompt Era was a trap. It focused on assets (more blogs, more images, more noise..). The Agent Era”focuses on Outcomes.





Agents don’t just generate – they orchestrate. They have tool-use capabilities – the ability to log into your CRM, browse your competitor’s pricing in real-time, and adjust your bidding strategy based on the weather in Vancouver. They don’t need a 500-word prompt because they already have the context. They know your brand voice, your Q3 goals and the fact that the CEO hates the teal.





Why Clients are Done with Prompting





Marketing clients are tired of paying for AI-assisted work that still feels like a struggle. They’re done with the hype and they now want the efficiency (and savings) that were promised.





    

  1. Autonomous Operations: Clients don’t want an agency that prompts an AI to write a report – they want an agency that has built an Agent to be the reporting system.
    2. 




  2. The End of the Middle-Person Tax: If an agency is just using AI to do the same old manual tasks slightly faster, the client will eventually just do it themselves. The value now lies in building the Agentic Infrastructure that runs the client’s business while everyone is sleeping.
    3. 




  3. Speed of Thought: In the time it takes to write a perfect prompt, an Agent has already run a thousand simulations of a media spend and picked the winner.
    4. 






Stop Chatting, Start Delegating





The Prompt Era was a fun novelty act but now, “Account Director” Agents are the ones who will actually move the needle on your P&L.





For agencies, the choice is stark: you can either be the person desperately trying to find the perfect sequence of words to make a chatbot behave, or you can be the architect who builds the autonomous systems that make your competitors look like they’re still using a fax machine.





The transition from prompting to delegating is the difference between working for your technology and having your technology work for you.





So, by all means, keep polishing those 200-word prompts if you enjoy the busywork. But just know that while you’re busy typing, your competitor’s Agents have already analyzed the market, optimized the spend, and are currently wondering why you’re still so fond of the submit button.





The future isn’t coming – it’s already logged in. Are you managing it, or are you still just chatting with it?








If your agency meetings have started to feel like a recurring subscription you forgot to cancel, it’s time for a reality check. There is a massive difference between a partner who drives your growth and a passenger who just enjoys the ride (and the retainer). Before you commit to the soul-crushing paperwork of a full-blown pitch, you owe it to your budget – and your sanity – to ask these ten questions:





1. When was the last time you surprised and delighted us ?





And no, a box of lukewarm cupcakes with the agency logo on them doesn’t count. We mean a strategic pivot or a creative “aha!” moment that didn’t make you wince. If the last time you were delighted was during the pitch, you’re officially in a “ghosting” phase.





2. If we didn’t speak for a week, would we actually notice?





This is the ultimate test of your retainer. If the agency disappeared into a silent void for seven days and your business kept humming along perfectly, you aren’t paying for strategic partnership – you’re paying for a very expensive security blanket.





3. What’s the last  really smart thing you shared with us?





Agencies should be your external brain, not just your extra hands. If the last “insight” they gave you was “video is big on TikTok right now,” you’re paying for a news feed, not a consultant. You want the kind of smarts that make you feel like you’ve just had a double espresso.





4. Who actually works here anymore?





Is the senior lead who sold you the dream still on the business, or have you been quietly handed off to a more junior team? If the turnover is higher than a pancake house, your brand soul is leaking out the door.





5. What’s the AI plan (besides “we’re looking into it“)?





If your agency doesn’t have a clear AI roadmap, they’re basically bringing a horse and carriage to a Formula 1 race. You need to know:









6. Are you caught up in Holding Company Hunger Games?





With all the mergers and synergy talk you need to know: Is your account lead focused on your ROI, or are they busy updating their org charts because their department was ‘consolidated’ into a different business unit.





7. Are you growing our business or just keeping the lights on?





Is the agency a thermostat (changing the environment) or a thermometer (just telling you it’s cold)? If they’re just executing the SOW like a robot, they aren’t a partner; they’re a utility bill.





8. Is there a turf war happening on my dime?





If your creative agency and your media agency are fighting over who owns the brand’s soul like divorced parents at a birthday party, you’re the one losing out. Performance should be the only goal, not who gets to claim the most line items in a budget.





9. Does our contract belong in a museum?





If your Scope of Work hasn’t changed since 2021, you’re likely paying for ‘print ad coordination’ while your competitors are winning the Metaverse (or at least the current version of it). A stale SOW is just a slow way to overpay.





10. Would I recommend you to a friend, or would that be a mean prank?





Be honest. If a peer asked for a recommendation, would you enthusiastically hand over the agency’s number, or would you change the subject and ask about the weather? Your gut usually knows the ROI before the spreadsheet does.





The  Request for Transformation (RFT)





If these questions left you feeling a bit awkward, don’t panic. 





You don’t have to fire everyone and start a grueling six-month pitch process. You can issue a Request for Transformation. It’s the marriage counseling of the marketing world – a chance to reset the rules, fix the fees, and get the A-team  back in the room without the drama of a breakup.








Agency pitches are essentially high-stakes first dates: A choreographed dance of tailored suits, polite laughter and a collective effort to keep the ‘quirks’ under wraps until the second meeting.





Whether you’re looking for a media, digital, or PR partner, a pitch is a rare chance to peer into the industry looking glass – and hopefully find a partner, not just a vendor who’s really good at PowerPoint.





When you invite smart people into a room to tell you how great your business could be, it’s bound to spark some soul-searching.





That’s the dream.





But sometimes, the dream starts to feel more like a fever dream.





And while most pitches go smoothly, keep an eye out for these six red flags that suggest you might be getting ‘pitched’ in more ways than one.





1. The Guru





The agency brings in a ‘Guru’- a person with a brain the size of a planet and insights that make you feel like you’ve reached enlightenment.





The catch? The Guru lives in a different time zone, possibly on a different tectonic plate, and is about as likely to work on your daily account as a unicorn is to lead your Tuesday status call. Once the contract is signed, they vanish into the mists of ‘Strategic Oversight’.





Reality check:  What is the actual, physical access to this person? Will they be in the trenches with us, or are they just here for the opening act?





2. The Shiny Object





We’ve all seen it: a flashy VR experience, a viral stunt involving a high-altitude balloon, or an app that does something cool but totally useless. It’s easy to get distracted by the glitter, but remember: A one-off stunt is a sprint; your brand needs a marathon runner. Don’t let a clever ad distract you from the fact that they haven’t mentioned your actual business goals once.





Reality check:  How does this cool toy actually integrate with our boring-but-necessary long-term requirements?





3. Theatre Overload





We love enthusiasm as much as anyone else, but there is a fine line between passionate partner and three-ring circus. If the agency spends more time on the choreography of their entrance than on their data strategy, be careful. You’re hiring a team, not a troupe of interpretive dancers.





Reality check:  When the smoke machine stops and the confetti is swept away, what is the core offering that actually differentiates them?





4. It’s All About Me





This is the ‘Lead Role Casting’ trap. Either one charismatic ego-tripper dominates the entire 60 minutes, or less senior staff (the people who will actually be doing the work) are sitting in the corner like Victorian children – seen but not heard.





If your team are like ghosts in the room and don’t don’t hear from the people you’ll be talking to every day, you aren’t seeing the agency; you’re seeing a monologue.





Reality check: Can we meet the rest of the team for a coffee – without the Lead Actor present?





5. The Missing Connection





Chemistry is the secret sauce. You can have the smartest strategy in the world, but if your team leaves the room feeling like they just sat through a particularly cold dental cleaning, it’s not going to work. If there’s no spark, no amount of ROI will make those 9:00 AM meetings bearable.





Reality check:  Why does this feel like a bad blind date, and what is specifically missing from the emotional connection here?





6. The Budget Magician





This agency promises the moon, the stars, and a Super Bowl spot on a shoestring budget. They’ve looked at your modest ;ocal radio budget and somehow produced a plan that includes a world tour and an A-list celebrity endorsement. It feels like magic … because that’s what it is – illusion. You’ll sign the deal, and three months later, the ‘unexpected costs’ will start appearing like rabbits out of a hat.





Reality check:  This looks incredible, but can you walk us through the math? Which parts of this plan are based on best-case scenarios and which parts are actually guaranteed?





The Bottom Line





All these warning signs are your ‘check engine’ lights of the marketing world. And course any successful search depends on a solid process – not just your gut instinct.





For a comprehensive guide on how to prepare for your agency search process as well as things to look for (and avoid), call your friendly agency search consultant or check out the guide we wrote for the Association of Canadian Advertisers on Searching For A Marketing Communications Agency Partner: – A Guidebook for Marketers on Agency Searches.










 





 



Let’s be honest: the relationship between a brand and its agency is a lot like a long-term marriage. In the beginning, there were fancy dinners, blue-sky thinking, and a boat load of enthusiasm. But what about lately? Are things unfolding like you imagined, or are you acting like you’re roommates arguing over who left the AI-generated trash in the hallway?





If you’re wondering whether your agency is still “the one” or if you’re just paying a very expensive monthly subscription for mediocrity, it’s time for a serious vibe check.  Here are a few questions to think about:





1. The “Surprise and Delight” Barometer





When was the last time your agency actually surprised you?





The Dream: They bring you a brilliant consumer insight that makes you say, “Damn, they’re smart.”





The Reality: They bring you a “trending” TikTok idea that was cool three weeks ago and features a dancing cat.





The Test: If you didn’t hear from them for a full week, would you notice? Or would you just enjoy the blissful silence and the extra room in your calendar? If the answer is “I’d finally get some work done,” your retainer might just be an expensive keep the lights on fee.





2. Holding Company Musical Chairs





The ad world is currently one giant game of ‘Hungry Hungry Hippos’ and with all the reshuffling, you could be forgiven for thinking your agency has been more focused on their new office floor plan than your 2026 goals.





So check the room. Is your senior leadership still there, or has the holding company shake-up replaced your seasoned veteran with an enthusiastic but more junior team?





3. The Robot in the Room (AI)





Sure, we’re all using AI, but is your agency using it to help you or just to invoice you faster?





Have they guided you through their AI workflow, or are they hoping you don’t notice the sixth finger on the hand of the model in your latest social ad? (Trust me – it’s happened…)





And… if you don’t have contractual language around AI guardrails and ownership, you’re basically living in the Wild West. Without a sheriff.





4. The “Play Nice” Factor





Are your agencies working together in a beautiful symphony, or is it more of a turf war where the PR team is currently staging a coup against your media agency?





If you’re spending more time mediating playground fights than reviewing creative, your integrated solution is actually a fragmented headache.





5. Recommendation or Restraining Order?





Here is the ultimate litmus test: If a fellow marketer asked for a recommendation, would you give them your agency’s number, or would you pull them aside and whisper, “Run for your life”?





The “It’s Not Me, It’s You” Solution





If these questions made you sweat, you don’t necessarily need a full-blown agency search which – if not done properly – is the corporate equivalent of moving houses during a hurricane.





Instead, try a “Request for Transformation.” It’s a formal way of saying: “I love you, but you need to start trying again.”It’s a chance to update your Scope of Work, set new AI boundaries, and remind them that you’re paying for a growth engine, not a night light.





Is it time to redefine the relationship? If so, we can help you draft a Request for Transformation framework to get your current agency back on track (or help you figure out if it’s truly time to swipe left).








Our 2025 Canadian Agency Pitch Report is officially live, and the data tells a fascinating story. While the total volume of pitches dipped slightly by 7.4% compared to the previous year, the real takeaway isn’t the quantity- it’s the vibe shift in how brands are choosing their partners.





With 163 pitches tracked last year, we saw some massive industry pivots:









We Have the Data—Now We Want Your Truth





The report gives us the what, but we need you to help us understand the how. Statistics show us who won, but they don’t capture the actual “State of the Pitch”—the late nights, the chemistry sessions, or the process itself.





Last year’s inaugural “State of the Pitch” survey confirmed a painful reality: 31% of pitches in Canada were rated as “bad or very bad.” We saw avoidable issues like agencies being given less than two weeks to respond, cattle call pitches with over a dozen agencies, and demands for free strategy and creative upfront.





If you were one of the agencies involved in those 163 pitches last year, we need your voice. Whether the process was a gold standard of respect or a grueling marathon that should have been an email, your feedback is the only way we can move that 31% dissatisfaction rate downward. We want to move beyond anecdotes to quantify the boots on the ground experience of the 2025 cycle.







This isn’t about who won or lost. It’s about how the pitch was managed. Your insights help us advocate for a healthier, more transparent pitching ecosystem in Canada.







Join the Conversation





Your feedback is entirely confidential—we aren’t looking for data that links back to specific advertisers. We just want the truth.