Mike Laraway is the Senior Vice President of Client Services for MMC in the Americas. Ahead of ProcureCon Marketing USA next week in Los Angeles, he shares insights into some of the key challenges he's hearing from clients and offers some valuable Marketing Procurement advice.
What’s your career background? The early part of my career includes 22 years in agency account management, business development and agency management. This included P&L responsibilities, and the “strategies” agencies utilized to earn incremental revenue beyond contractual remuneration, many of which continue today.
The past 18 years have been on this side of the table, helping clients improve agency transparency and optimize agency value for the marketer.
What are some of the challenges you're hearing?
The industry is evolving at incredible speed, creating additional work for procurement teams that are already stretched thin. Digital transformation has created fragmentation and increased agency rosters with specialists. Media agencies continue to shed their traditional fiduciary role, now acting as principal and reseller of media. The programmatic supply chain is crowded with intermediaries, many providing questionable value. Deliverable based remuneration is beginning to replace cost-plus models. Contractual updates do not always keep pace, and that’s where we help clients by identifying these issues and resulting consequences.
Does your work mainly cover media audits?
As independent marketing financial compliance auditors, MMC brings clarity to many of these uncertainties. For example, we’ve been helping our clients identify where Principal Based Media is used – which is often without their knowledge. However, while media is often the largest spend area, we audit more than just media spend. Take Creative, Production or Influencer Marketing, Experiential, Shopper Marketing – any type of marketing communications agency. These and many other sub-categories are traditionally managed directly by the Brand or Marketing teams. They often have very low scrutiny of commercial terms, especially when the work is project-based and Procurement doesn't always get involved. This can lead to a significant waste of funds, which could be reinvested in future campaigns. I’m the interface between the client and our internal audit team, providing our clients with a more precise picture of how their spend is being managed across the agency eco-system.
What’s your best piece of advice?
While agency agreements are legal documents, they are only a projection of how the relationship is expected to operate. Things change over time, and deviations need to be addressed for the relationship to be truly effective for both sides. We identify what’s working as well as what’s not working. Sometimes the latter requires a change in process. Other times, it needs to be addressed in more concise contractual terms. Either way, the objective is to optimize agency value for the client in ways that work for both sides.
My goal is to make sure our clients get the full visibility they need. We can then offer actionable recommendations for further improvements. Even though I’ve been at this for 18 years now, it’s a rapidly evolving category so I’m learning new stuff all the time. There’s always a fresh challenge, and I make sure our clients know about these developments.
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If you have any questions about the topics covered in this article or would like to book a follow-up call with Mike Laraway, please get in touch.
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