The traditional response to underperformance is usually a structural “pivot”: we pitch the agency, we restructure the department, or we hire a new CMO. But these are often cosmetic fixes for a systemic disease.

At TrinityP3, we have identified that true marketing excellence—whether delivered by an external agency or an internal resource—is built on three interdependent pillars: The Operational Review (The Diagnostic), The Engagement Agreement (The Framework), and Evalu8ing (The Measurement).

When balanced correctly, this trinity eliminates the “friction costs” that drain up to 20% of marketing productivity and replaces them with a culture of mutual accountability.

1. The Operational Review: Auditing the “Why” and the “How”

The first pillar is the Agency Operational Review. This is the deep-dive diagnostic designed to uncover the structural truths of the relationship. Most organizations wait until a relationship is in crisis to perform a review, but high-performing teams use them as a proactive “health check.”

Beyond the Output

Traditional audits look at the “What”—the quality of the TVC or the ROI of the media spend. An Operational Review looks at the “How.” We examine the mechanics of the collaboration:

• The Briefing Flow: Is work starting with a clear strategy, or is the agency “briefing themselves” through trial and error?

• Approval Hierarchies: How many layers of “Maybe” must a project pass through before it reaches a “Yes”?

• Resource Mapping: Are the right seniority levels being applied to the right tasks?

The In-House Parallel

For in-house agencies, the Operational Review is often a wake-up call. Internal clients often treat in-house resources as “free” or “unlimited,” leading to a chaotic intake process that prioritises urgency over importance. The review identifies these systemic leaks, providing the data needed to move from a “production shop” to a “strategic hub.”

2. The Engagement Agreement: Defining the “Ways of Working” (WoW)

If the Operational Review identifies the gaps, the Engagement Agreement (EA) is the bridge built to close them.

For too long, the industry has relied on the Service Level Agreement (SLA). The problem with an SLA is that it is a legal document designed for “compliance.” It tells the agency what happens if they fail. An Engagement Agreement, conversely, is an operational document designed for “success.” It tells both parties how to win.

The Multi-Directional Contract

The EA is built on the realisation that the client’s behaviour directly impacts the agency’s performance. It formalises the “Ways of Working” (WoW) for both external partners and internal teams:

• Mutual Commitments: The agency commits to strategic leadership; the client commits to consolidated, actionable feedback within 48 hours.

• Process Standardisation: Explicitly defining the “Definition of Ready”, the minimum information required for a brief to be accepted.

• Conflict Resolution: Setting the protocols for “respectful challenge,” ensuring that creative friction leads to better ideas rather than fractured relationships.

For an in-house team, the EA acts as an Internal Charter. It gives the internal agency the mandate to push back on poor briefs and establishes a “contractual” relationship with business units, ensuring the internal team is respected as a professional partner.

3. Evalu8ing: The Measurement of Collaborative Health

The final pillar is Evalu8ing, TrinityP3’s proprietary relationship diagnostic platform. Without measurement, the Engagement Agreement is merely a “wish list.” Evalu8ing turns the “soft skills” of collaboration into hard data.

Measuring the “White Space”

Evalu8ing moves beyond the one-way “report card” where a client marks their agency. It is a 360-degree, multi-directional assessment.

• Agency-to-Client: Allows the agency to provide honest, anonymous feedback on the quality of the client’s briefing and leadership.

• Agency-to-Agency: In a multi-agency roster, it measures how well the Creative, Media, and Digital partners are collaborating.

• Internal Stakeholder Alignment: Measures how well different internal divisions (Marketing vs. Sales vs. IT) are aligned on the brand’s goals.

Continuous Improvement

By running Evalu8ing as a quarterly pulse check, organizations can see if the “Ways of Working” established in the Engagement Agreement are actually being followed. It identifies “micro-frictions” before they turn into relationship-ending crises. It provides the C-suite with a “Health Score” for their marketing investments, proving that the team is becoming more efficient over time.

The Velocity Dividend: Balancing the Trinity

Why does this balance matter? Because speed requires structure. When you undertake an Operational Review, you identify where you are losing time. When you implement an Engagement Agreement, you set the rules that recover that time. When you use Evalu8ing, you ensure that those rules are being respected.

The result is what we call the Velocity Dividend.

1. Externally: You stop the “Pitch Cycle.” You fix the relationship you have, saving the massive cost and disruption of going to market.

2. Internally: You empower your in-house teams. You give them the structure they need to produce high-quality work without the burnout.

3. Commercially: You ensure that every dollar of fee—whether paid to a global network or an internal headcount, is focused on outputs and outcomes, not on navigating internal bureaucracy.

Engineering the “Dream Team”

High-performing teams are not an accident of chemistry; they are an achievement of architecture.

By balancing these three elements, you move your marketing department from a state of “reactive chaos” to “proactive excellence.” You stop policing your partners and start enabling them. Whether you are managing a roster of ten global agencies or an internal team of fifty, the path to performance is the same: Audit the process, Agree on the behaviour, and Measure the collaboration.

Is your marketing ecosystem suffering from the “Friction Tax”? Contact us today to discuss how our Operational Reviews, Engagement Agreements, and Evalu8ing platform can reset your team for high performance.

The post The High-Performance Trinity: How Operational Reviews, Engagement Agreements, and Evalu8ing Reset Marketing Excellence appeared first on TrinityP3 Global Marketing Management Consultants.

They explore the fundamental shift from cost-based to value-based remuneration systems, a transition accelerated by the rise of generative AI. The conversation delves into the “crisis of the hourly rate,” the hidden financial risks of in-housing, and the necessity of differentiating between low-value commoditised tasks and high-value strategic work. They also examine how marketers can align their activities with business outcomes to transition from a “spending” mindset to an “investment” portfolio approach that satisfies C-suite scrutiny.

For a sector where marketing is often the second-largest line item on a P&L, trailing only behind payroll, understanding how to articulate and measure commercial impact is critical. As AI decouples production time from output value, making the traditional “head-hour” model a race to the bottom, this is an essential conversation to eavesdrop on for anyone looking to future-proof their agency fee structures and marketing investments.

You can listen to the podcast here:

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That old adage, “what gets measured gets managed” doesn’t often start from a position of what actually matters to the business. It starts from what’s easiest to measure.

Transcription (Edited):

Darren Woolley:

Hi, I’m Darren Woolley, founder and CEO of Trinity P3 Marketing Management Consultancy. Welcome to Managing Marketing, a weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media, and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.

The concept of value, particularly when it comes to agency fees for service, is a conversation that’s gained additional momentum with the application of generative AI to automate and streamline much of the agency’s services process. Helping us to define what agency value could look like, please welcome the commercially savvy CFO and senior finance consultant at Trinity P3, Nick Hand. Welcome, Nick.

Nick Hand:

Hi Darren, thank you very much. Thanks for having me back.

Darren Woolley:

Look, we’re living in interesting times, as they say. I think it’s meant to be a blessing and a curse. One of the topics that we’ve talked about for years is the need to move away from a cost-based system to a value-based system. This has suddenly reared up with AI and the promise of being able to do more for less. Agencies are suddenly realising that charging by the head-hour is no longer a valued way of making money. In fact, it’s a race to the bottom if the machines are taking over the work. But there’s a lot of talk about value, and yet not a lot of talk about what value is, other than either paying for what’s produced or paying for the outcome that those outputs produce.

Nick Hand:

Agencies struggle with it because they’ve never really considered it before. They were being paid on inputs and cost-recovery models. Now, all of a sudden, that discussion has flipped on its head and they are scrambling to try and figure out how they can get paid away from cost inputs. The struggle also stems from the fact that a lot of marketers within organisations don’t know what value looks like either. You’ve got the agency off doing one thing, the marketer thinking value is something completely different, and the C-suite looking at a third stream. Everyone is going in a different direction, so you never get this pull-back to the things that actually matter to the business. What does success look like? Both agencies and marketers are struggling with that.

The Consumer Perspective on Agency Value

Darren Woolley:

It varies depending on who you’re talking to. If you’re talking to a marketer who has a defined budget, they are looking to maximise what they get for that. If you’re talking to a marketer who’s got a growth agenda, they’re probably looking for how they engage an agency to help grow that. One of the things I find is that agencies always think of value from their revenue perspective and not from the consumer’s perspective—the client and the organisation. Ultimately, that is where value resides: in the mind of the person buying the service.

Nick Hand:

Absolutely. It is helpful for businesses to take a step back and imagine they are consumers. In our personal lives, we make value decisions every single time we purchase something. We assess whether the benefit we derive outweighs the cost. But a lot of businesses think insularly about how an agency can maximise revenue from a particular client, rather than what is underneath the brief. Potentially, the goal is to grow brand awareness. What does that look like commercially for the client? Perhaps the client isn’t quite sure. It’s the agency’s job to get under the bonnet of that and not just take the brief at face value. They should always look for the primary commercial objective.

Darren Woolley:

But Nick, we’ve seen that marketers are very much driven by wanting to get more for less, or more for the same amount. They believe that if they do more, the business will get better results, or they want to prove they got a “value deal” by getting more from the agency for the same money. Many marketers default back to an input model, the traditional head-hour rate, because they actually put value around the people they’re getting. Particularly if someone at the agency is highly regarded, they like a retainer model where they can dictate getting those people on their business. The struggle to get to a value-based proposition exists because from the buyer’s perspective, a person is tangible, whereas everything else is less so.

Nick Hand:

That makes sense, and it worked when budgets were higher and channels were fewer. Marketers are trying to do more with less, but the proliferation of online channels and the amount of “content” needed to feed that machine has led them down a path where they have a set budget and just need to do more with it. They aren’t stopping to think about what they are trying to achieve. Am I just trying to get eyeballs, or do I want those eyeballs attached to a human being who will do something in response to the message? Many relationships are bought on cost but expected to deliver value. More C-suite executives are looking at what marketing actually delivers to the bottom line. Marketers simply don’t know how to articulate value in finance or CEO language. They might know the business objectives, but they don’t have the vocabulary to articulate them clearly in a brief. That’s where the disconnect comes from.

Investing vs. Spending: The CFO’s View

Darren Woolley:

There’s a big difference between a marketer given a budget to spend and a marketer who pitches the CFO for a budget to invest. A spend budget focuses on the volume of work produced without correlation to business impact. A marketer wanting a budget to invest must have clear, agreed objectives and measures. We often push aside the marketers who just have a budget to spend because they are just buying as much stuff as they can. The marketers who have an investment to make want to align their agencies to likewise have skin in the game.

Nick Hand:

That’s the key. The CFO will give you more money to invest if you can show the commercial return. Being able to attribute the marketing programme back to tangible business results is vital. Marketers will always get more money if they can show their activities are contributing to that. Likewise, if an activity is not working, stopping it and reallocating the money to something that works is essential. If the marketer is just spending money, the conversation about creating value becomes moot because they’re measuring the amount of stuff they get rather than the impact the agency brings to bear.

Darren Woolley:

Let’s explore that. Under the traditional hourly rate or retainer, it was about retaining a number of people, negotiating the lowest possible fee for them, and then throwing as much work at them as possible.

Nick Hand:

And that reframes advertising as a commodity. Price and efficiency become the most important factors rather than business results. Many processes set up by procurement commoditise agency services. Outside of a few key people, they often don’t care who does the work as long as it is done at volume and speed. Marketers need to decide if they want their agency services to be a commodity. That won’t correlate to moving the needle on the business results that a CFO or CEO is looking for.

The Hidden Price of In-Housing

Darren Woolley:

Then consider when you take agency resources in-house. Marketers often think, “That’s no longer my budget,” but they are still a headcount in marketing. While they reduced expenditure with external suppliers, they increased the internal cost of marketing to the business. From a CFO’s perspective, there must be a demand for a return on that investment beyond it just being “cheaper” than an agency.

Nick Hand:

I would be expecting the same or better returns from bringing it in-house. Why take the risk of employing people and the additional costs that brings otherwise? For commoditised services where you want to do things cheaply and efficiently—like basic design or digital production—in-housing may be fine. But if you are looking for strategic or creative guidance, bringing it in-house can limit you because you are stuck with the people you’ve hired. You can’t necessarily go to your roster and pick the specialist skills needed for a specific brief. It creates more pressure on the marketer and reduces the flexibility needed for non-commoditised activity.

Darren Woolley:

Finance looks at overall business expenditure. Does external supplier expenditure stand out more than internal operating costs? Headcount is an operational expense, but they are counted as employees and might not get the same interrogation unless there’s a process of reducing headcount.

Nick Hand:

Advertising and marketing is usually the biggest or second biggest line item on a P&L, but the first is headcount. When business is good, you can get away with more. When times are tougher and cuts are needed, the marketing budget is targeted first, and headcount second. I’d want to know what these people are contributing to the organisation. If it ends up being a lot of administrative busywork without commercial impact, they are equally up for cuts. It makes them a cost and a commodity that could be outsourced anyway.

Darren Woolley:

Although the conversation for in-housing has switched from cost reduction, there is still a rapid justification because it is “cheaper,” without necessarily proving it. It’s assumed to be cheaper because the company provides the real estate, technology, and utilities that are normally built into an agency fee.

Nick Hand:

The rationale is you’re taking away the overhead and the agency’s profit margin. In reality, you’re probably only taking away the profit margin. Unless you have spare office space you can’t offload, you’ll have to find more space. The flip side is the lack of flexibility in being able to pivot quickly. For commoditised work, it’s great, but for strategically intense work, those models can fall down.

Why Performance-Based Fees Rarely Work

Darren Woolley:

Let’s go back to the marketer with an investment budget aligned to KPIs. Those metrics would have to be valued by finance if they are how the marketer is judged for delivering on the investment.

Nick Hand:

They have to be. Otherwise, if the agency, the C-suite, and the marketer are pulling in different directions, that’s not success. The marketing team’s measurements must be in lockstep with business objectives. If the objective is to buy media at the lowest cost per thousand, that’s a primary KPI. If that’s just a mechanism to deliver a larger objective, then it should be measured, but it isn’t the primary judge of whether the communications have been effective.

Darren Woolley:

This is where we hit a roadblock. In the Four Ps, agencies have very little to do with product, pricing, or distribution. They are primarily involved in promotion, which is just one lever for driving sales and profit. How can you align an agency based on the value they’ve created when they only contribute to one of several mechanisms for driving financial value?

Nick Hand:

The conversation is tempered by the amount of influence the agency actually has. The notion of paying agencies for outcomes ignores the problem that you can’t tie the entire agency’s fee to results they don’t fully control. But you can judge the agency on their proportion of influence. Maybe a portion of their fee is tied to that, so they achieve upside when the client does well but share the pain when they don’t. The key is apportioning that influence to the right degree.

Darren Woolley:

I get that, but it leads back to performance-based remuneration (PBR), which often fails. The downside is high risk for the agency, and the upside is rarely enough to justify it. No one can agree on final attribution. I know examples where things went gangbusters and the agency expected a big payday, only to be told they didn’t really contribute that much. Or it goes badly for reasons the agency couldn’t control, like a factory burning down, and they lose out. When I see conversations about value payments based on outcomes, they are essentially asking agencies to push all their chips onto a single hand. Agencies shouldn’t be asked to do that any more than a person would sacrifice their salary for a small potential bonus.

Value-Based Outputs: The Case for Tiered Deliverables

Nick Hand:

It’s not necessarily about payment by results; it’s about the frameworks in place to measure if the relationship is a success and setting the price up front. Why does something cost $100? What is the marketer expecting the agency to contribute that justifies that price?

Darren Woolley:

Are we talking about value-based outputs rather than outcomes? If a service produces something, we negotiate a price based on its contribution. For example, an EDM telling customers about public holidays has very little value compared to an EDM promoting a sale to drive revenue. I wouldn’t pay the same amount for both. One has no value for driving sales, whereas the other has high potential.

Nick Hand:

Exactly. Businesses need to treat these like consumer transactions. Everything is contextual and can be valued differently because one thing is a greater benefit to the business than the other. It’s about setting the price based on the perceived value that will be generated.

Darren Woolley:

In the past, marketers said, “It takes the same amount of time to do both.” But with AI, time has been largely decoupled from production. You want a qualified human to make sure the sale-driving EDM is effective, perhaps doing AB testing. The other is just information. In financial services, they produce huge amounts of regulatory communication compared to home loan promotions that are incredibly profitable. You shouldn’t pay the same for every output.

Nick Hand:

Where that falls down is that many agency scopes aren’t detailed enough to identify those differences. You can’t just have a line in the scope that says “EDM.” It needs to be fleshed out to explain what it is expected to drive in terms of response and sales. That ascribes it a higher value than a closing notice. Generally, there isn’t enough detail to differentiate those levels of requirement.

Darren Woolley:

That happens when the scope is viewed only as a way to lock in a fee for delivery. If you follow it to the logical conclusion of a retail relationship, the agency has a range of services: high-return, medium-return, and low-return. The low-value services would be priced at the discount end, likely done by AI with minimal human intervention. At the other end is the best thinking to maximise the return on investment. You naturally pay more for that. There is a pricing differential, and as a shopper, you pick how many of each you need and pay the bill.

Managing the Brand Portfolio Like an Investment

Nick Hand:

It doesn’t even need to be worked out entirely in advance. For recurring commoditised services, you agree on the price. For higher-value work, it might be bespoke and quoted when the brief is submitted. The marketer knows they are paying a fair price because those lower fees set a frame of reference. Acknowledging these different value levels is the starting point.

Darren Woolley:

Anything spent at that premium end is assumed to contribute to growth. There could be an additional bonus paid on overall growth. The more the client spends in that area, the larger the share of the bonus. It keeps the agency focused on why they are doing the premium work—to drive growth—while the low-cost work is just to get things done efficiently so money can be reinvested into higher-value areas.

Nick Hand:

Paying a bonus on commoditised work doesn’t make sense. Incentivising the agency on the higher-value work is the way to go.

Darren Woolley:

There’s a trap here. Marketers often say they spend 30% on brand building, 30% on promotion, and 40% on retail. But when we look at actual expenditure, it’s often 70% on retail and only 10% on brand. They are inclined to go short to drive immediate sales while giving up on long-term brand building.

Nick Hand:

If you incentivise the agency, that needs to be factored in. Perhaps the agency is bonused on churning out lower-value work efficiently to manage short-term goals. If that means more to the organisation than long-term brand building, then that becomes the higher-value work in practice, even if it’s priced lower.

Darren Woolley:

In one case, a company realised product promotion was actually part of their brand work, so that became the high-premium work. Retail was split because they realised there were different types. Many marketers don’t like to prioritised their work this way because they feel every task is equally important. But from an investment point of view, that isn’t true.

AI, Speed-to-Market, and the Productivity Premium

Nick Hand:

Marketing budgets need to be treated like an investment portfolio. You invest in different areas to spread risk, knowing some have higher returns. Some are long-term propositions. If marketers looked at their investment this way, you’d see more apportioning of value based on what is being achieved.

Darren Woolley:

When we worked with a consumer goods company, budgets for products were aligned to market potential. Small products with big growth got a certain budget compared to dominant but static ones. Some brands couldn’t even be invested in because there was no financial argument for it.

Nick Hand:

Were the agency fees aligned with that approach?

Darren Woolley:

No, and that was the problem. A small brand with a small budget paid the same fee for an equivalent piece of work as a large brand. We designed a pricing model based on brand value, reviewed every year. It meant paying more for more upside and less for less upside. The agency couldn’t get their head around it because they thought it took the same amount of work either way.

Nick Hand:

The agency missed the point. The client expected them to spend the bulk of their time and thinking on the higher-value brands. If you give agencies a flat playing surface, they’ll spend too much time on declining brands and not enough on high-growth ones. That’s on the agency.

Darren Woolley:

It was also on the marketer, because brand managers were fearful that paying less meant the agency wouldn’t spend enough time on them. They had a Walmart budget but wanted a Chanel service. There are many emotional drivers. Agencies want cost recovery, while brand managers see their budget as a sign of their own importance.

The Road to Trust and Transparent Pricing

Nick Hand:

AI is making the go-to-market faster. An agency can now pump out 20 iterations using generative AI. That might cause analysis-paralysis, but it also means a brief can reach digital channels in days rather than weeks. The agency could argue that speed is more valuable to the advertiser and justify a premium. It might actually give agencies a reason to increase prices because they can get the client into market faster.

Darren Woolley:

This highlights how important trust is. Appointing an agency based on “upside” requires high trust. A pricing model allows for agreement up front and adjustment later. Marketers need to think about their scope of work not just as services, but in terms of what they want those services to achieve. You could build a 3×3 framework: what is the purpose, how much do you need, and when do you need it?

Nick Hand:

The proliferation of data has over-complicated measurement in the pursuit of perfection. Having something simpler that is agreed upon by both parties is often more effective. Measurement should start from what actually matters to the business rather than what is easiest to measure. If an agency is measured on something different than what they were asked to do, it won’t be a success.

Darren Woolley:

Nick Hand, thank you for this conversation. I think it is an interesting one about what value actually looks like, and one that will continue.

Nick Hand:

Fantastic. Look forward to it. Thanks Darren.

Darren Woolley:

And for you, what does value look like?

The post Managing Marketing: Redefining Agency Value and Fees in the Age of AI appeared first on TrinityP3 Global Marketing Management Consultants.

The failure of traditional marketing process design lies in its top-down nature. It assumes that marketing is a linear assembly line when, in reality, it is a complex social system of collaboration.

At TrinityP3, we have moved beyond static process mapping. Our Ways of Working (WoW) and Engagement Agreement methodology represents a superior approach because it prioritizes ownership over enforcement. By involving the people managing and delivering the process in its design, we create a living system that survives personnel changes and agency rotations.

1. The Flaw in “Enforced” Process Design

Too often, marketing processes are designed in a vacuum by external operations consultants or procurement leads who are disconnected from the daily creative friction of the brand. This leads to several systemic failures:

• Resistance to Rigidness: When a process is “enforced,” teams find workarounds. If a briefing system is too cumbersome, people start briefing via WhatsApp or over coffee. The “official” process becomes a ghost ship—perfect on paper, but empty of actual activity.

• The “New Broom” Syndrome: One of the biggest threats to marketing efficiency is the arrival of a new CMO or a new agency lead. Each “new broom” brings their own favorite templates and idiosyncratic ways of working. Without a documented and collectively owned framework, the existing process fragments instantly, and the organization loses years of institutional knowledge.

• The Linear Trap: Traditional mapping often assumes a “Waterfall” approach (Step A must lead to Step B). In a modern, multi-channel environment, work is often concurrent and iterative. Static maps can’t handle the messiness of real-time collaboration.

2. The Power of Co-Creation and Ownership

The Engagement Agreement methodology turns process design into a collaborative act. Instead of telling teams how to work, we facilitate a series of workshops where the marketing teams and their agencies design the interaction themselves.

Why Ownership Trumps Compliance

When a Brand Manager and a Creative Director sit in a room and agree on what a “Great Brief” looks like, they are no longer following a rule—they are upholding a promise. Because the people delivering the work helped build the framework, they have skin in the game.

This collaborative approach addresses the “why” before the “how.” When teams understand that a specific approval gate exists to protect them from legal risk or to ensure budget alignment, they stop seeing it as a hurdle and start seeing it as a safety net.

Multi-Directional Design

Unlike traditional mapping, which usually focuses on what the agency must deliver to the client, our methodology is multi-directional. It asks:

• “What does the agency need from the client to be successful?”

• “What are the non-negotiables for the media partner to hit their deadlines?”

• “How does the internal legal team want to be engaged to prevent bottlenecks?”

3. Overcoming the Fragmentation of Change

One of the most powerful benefits of a documented Engagement Agreement is its ability to act as the Organizational Anchor.

Marketing departments are high-churn environments. Agencies come and go; marketing leads rotate every two to three years. In a traditional model, the process departs with the person. With a Ways of Working (WoW) Manual in place, the process belongs to the position, not the person.

Onboarding vs. Re-Inventing

When a new agency is appointed, they aren’t invited to bring their “proprietary process.” Instead, they are onboarded into the brand’s established Engagement Agreement. They are shown: “This is how we brief, this is how we provide feedback, and this is how we measure success here.”

This doesn’t stifle the agency’s creativity; it focuses it. It removes the first six months of “feeling each other out” and replaces it with instant operational alignment. The benefit of an agreed-upon process is no longer fragile—it is foundational.

4. The Methodology: A Living, Breathing System

Traditional process mapping is “set and forget.” An Engagement Agreement is reviewed collectively and regularly improved.

The Feedback Loop

By using tools like Evalu8ing alongside the Engagement Agreement, we create a continuous improvement loop. If the data shows that the “Feedback Cycle” is still a point of friction despite the agreed-upon rules, the team reconvenes to adjust the process.

This creates a dynamic process that evolves as the business grows. If the brand shifts from traditional media to a social-first “Agile” model, the Engagement Agreement is updated by the team to reflect those new requirements.

5. The Superiority of Engagement

The difference between traditional process design and the TrinityP3 Engagement Agreement approach is the difference between a Map and a Compass.

A map tells you exactly where to step, but it becomes useless the moment the terrain changes. A compass gives you a direction and a set of principles that allow you to navigate even when the path is blocked.

By prioritizing ownership, co-creation, and multi-directional accountability, we help marketing organizations build a Collaborative Operating System that:

1. Survives leadership and agency turnover.

2. Reduces the friction and “noise” of daily interactions.

3. Empowers the people doing the work to improve the system they use.

Fix the Interaction, Not Just the Map

Stop enforcing processes on people who didn’t help build them. If you want a high-performing marketing team, you must involve them in the design of their own success.

The Engagement Agreement methodology isn’t just about drawing better boxes and arrows; it’s about building a culture of mutual respect and operational excellence that stands the test of time.

Are you tired of “reinventing the wheel” every time a new agency joins your roster? Contact TrinityP3 today to learn how our Engagement Agreement and Ways of Working methodology can provide your team with a permanent, high-performance foundation.

The post Why Engagement Agreements Outperform Traditional Process Mapping appeared first on TrinityP3 Global Marketing Management Consultants.

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The explore the complexities of marketing within the Australian superannuation industry, focusing on regulatory scrutiny, measurement challenges, and strategic insights for marketers aiming to demonstrate member benefits and business outcomes.

For a sector that manages more than $4.13 trillion in funds, making it one of the world’s largest pension systems, and spending $482 million a year on marketing and sponsorship, this is an essential conversation to eavesdrop on.

You can listen to the podcast here:

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I think the marketing industry as a whole has a bit of a habit at the moment of mass generalisations.

Transcription (Edited):

Darren Woolley:

Hi, I’m Darren Woolley, founder and CEO of Trinity P3 Marketing Management Consultancy. Welcome to Managing Marketing, a weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media, and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.

Back in 1992, with the introduction of the Australian Superannuation Guarantee, compulsory contributions to a super fund became part of the Australian workplace. Thirty-four years later, superannuation assets in Australia have reached approximately $4.13 trillion, making it one of the world’s largest pension systems.

With Australian superannuation funds spending $482 million on marketing and sponsorship in the previous financial year, it’s no wonder that APRA, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, is looking at marketing expenditure to ensure it is being invested in the best interests of its members. But what does this mean for marketers in the sector and their budgets? To help us understand the implications of this scrutiny, please welcome the CEO and co-founder of Artist Partners, Nick Jackson, and his collaborator on this work, the principal and founder of Moat Advisors, Andrew Mote.

Nicholas Jackson:

Thanks Darren, nice to be here.

Andrew Mote:

Great to be here, thank you.

Darren Woolley:

They are big numbers, aren’t they? We’re talking about trillions of dollars under management and hundreds of millions spent on advertising. For the average person, super is often something that happens in the background until they approach retirement age. Andrew, how do you see the current marketplace?

Andrew Mote:

I think the categorisation into retail, industry, and the remnants of what used to be called government super is correct. There is some innovation with a fourth category around “wrapper” type products for high-net-worth individuals. Your characterisation of consolidation is also right.

We’ve had a whole cohort of Australians contributing for decades, and we are now at the stage where people are rolling out of super into retirement phases. This marks a major shift in focus:

How have we spent the money? Is it delivering those retirement outcomes?

The Best Financial Interests Duty

Darren Woolley:

Nick, from your perspective, why has marketing become such a major interest point for APRA?

Nicholas Jackson:

Fundamentally, it’s because it’s such a large portion of the funds themselves. The total marketing spend in 2025 was over half a billion dollars. With that level of spend, it justifies scrutiny. There is now an onus on marketing teams to demonstrate tangible member benefits—though even the definition of that is murky territory at the moment.

Andrew Mote:

A major regulatory shift has occurred. We used to refer to the “best interests” of the members, but this has shifted to the “best financial interests” of the members. That triggered the data collection and the subsequent focus on 14 specific funds.

If you trace the legislation back a few years to the explanatory memorandums, there is direct discussion about marketing spend. The intent of policymakers was to move away from a simple “outcomes test” toward a “purpose test.” They want to see the process you follow, ensuring it is traceable, linked to outcomes, and backed by evidence within the company.

Darren Woolley:

Superannuation is all about investment. As a marketer, you would be happy to be seen as an investment within the organisation to help with growth. But proving the return on that investment has become increasingly complex. It’s not enough to just attribute; you have to financially prove how that investment acts in the best financial interest of the members.

Nicholas Jackson:

Marketing teams are often being sold “silver bullet” solutions. For example, some are told that Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM) is the answer to all ROI questions. Similarly, attribution is often demonised for only measuring one part of a customer journey. Right now, we don’t feel marketing teams are adequately set up to answer APRA’s scrutiny, and that is something we are very focused on.

The Efficiency Challenge: Rising Costs to Acquire

Darren Woolley:

Much measurement in the industry is done by the people selling you the media—the “walled gardens.” Andrew, what should marketers be thinking about to deliver the evidence required?

Andrew Mote:

There is a disconnect across many industries—not just super—between early indicator metrics and tracing them through to business outcomes. For super, that means asking if the customer actually ended up joining and how many funds they brought in. Without that, productivity targets or continuous improvement exercises can’t be run. Marketers can now serve their CEO and CFO, as well as APRA, by doing these same things.

Nicholas Jackson:

Connecting marketing investment to commercial outcomes involves defining what a member benefit is. One benefit might be reducing the cost to acquire. Advertising investment is going up year-on-year. From 2023 to 2024, it rose from roughly $300 million to over $400 million. At the same time, the cost to acquire across the industry has also gone up. The efficiency isn’t being demonstrated in the numbers.

Andrew Mote:

The logic is that if we invest in marketing and acquire more members, we share our fixed costs over a greater number of people, thereby reducing fees. For context, in FY23, we think industry cost to acquire was around $135. In FY25, that is up to $173. There is a wide distribution within those numbers; some are performing well, while others have a huge opportunity for improvement.

Darren Woolley:

I imagine these funds are capturing this data, but perhaps it isn’t central to the marketing function?

Andrew Mote:

Historically, it’s been challenging to move from platform metrics and “opaque” metrics like brand awareness into the central databases of an organisation. That is shifting. What wasn’t possible five years ago is possible now, but it takes marketing working with business strategy and internal IT teams. You will need to show your workings down the track.

Sponsorship and Data Governance

Darren Woolley:

Nick, marketing numbers also include sponsorship, which can be incredibly difficult to connect to regulatory inquiry.

Nicholas Jackson:

I’m not going to say MMM is the only answer. Ultimately, it’s about data governance. If an organisation has a grip on every stage of the customer journey and measures things that matter—competitive acquisition costs, retention, and lifetime value—then experiments in sponsorship can be validated. Right now, marketing costs are rising alongside acquisition costs, which suggests that continuous improvement isn’t being observed at a total industry level.

Darren Woolley:

You’d expect that if someone asked to prove the return, there would be a move toward “last-click attribution” or “performance media”—the irony being the implication that it’s the only media that performs. This is dangerous because it only accounts for the very last part of consideration.

Andrew Mote:

It shows up in the data. For example, Aware Super is spending high levels relative to its peers. Their acquisition is relatively low, so their cost to acquire is quite high—over $500 compared to AustralianSuper, which runs closer to $80. However, Aware Super and HESTA have churn rates around 8–9%, which is lower than some of their peers. One in five of Aware Super’s customers is a “switcher,” a discerning customer. Unscrambling that egg is complex, and we help companies work through those nuances.

Bridging the Internal Divide

Darren Woolley:

This isn’t just a marketing issue; it’s a business issue. You can no longer think of marketing as the “colouring-in” department. It has to be as integrated as the investments team.

Nicholas Jackson:

Good marketing is just good business. If you take a holistic view, what is a business other than product, promotion, price, and place? We called ourselves Artist Partners because we want to marry instinct with data and science. That mix of art and science, or logic and intuition, is what will enable teams in an AI-driven future.

Andrew Mote:

I’ve been in heated discussions between marketing and the rest of the organisation. I’m not sure how it ended up so adversarial. Every organisation has a product or strategy person who wants to help you work out whether to spend a dollar on retaining a customer versus attracting a new one. Trust them and work with them. That partnership can open up IT and help you work through regulatory questions from APRA.

Darren Woolley:

Often, organisations have a “marketing department” that is really just a promotions arm. Pricing, product, and distribution happen elsewhere. Anyone who has studied marketing knows those levers need to be worked in concert. Misalignment occurs when those four ‘Ps’ are disconnected. We need a culture of “safe inquiry” where marketers don’t feel they have to protect their budget just because it’s the first thing cut in a downturn.

Nicholas Jackson:

Marketers are currently sitting at a confluence of forces:

APRA pressure, the digitisation of platforms, and the arrival of AI. They are wondering which way to go. Our advice is to first get a grip on connecting investment to member outcomes. Point solutions aren’t enough. We propose that each marketing organisation build a “measurement spine” that integrates metrics that matter to understand how investment is influencing them. It’s not easy work, but it’s necessary.

Signal Design and the Measurement Spine

Darren Woolley:

Andrew, how do you operationalise that measurement process?

Andrew Mote:

Get on the same page about the “metrics that matter.” You have to sit down as a leadership team and admit if you can’t currently measure these things deeply. Bring in IT, analytics, and strategy to map out how systems talk to each other. This isn’t about cutting the budget; it’s about saying, “From that same $30 million next year, we want to get another 3% of customers.”

Nicholas Jackson:

The solution is different for every organisation based on maturity. You must look at your data maturity. Many organisations only have data that partially explains what happened. You cannot get to predictive modelling without quality data at the beginning.

Darren Woolley:

Within superannuation, there is a lot of data about how everyone else is performing that you could use. The more data you have, the better the econometric model. As George Box said, “All models are flawed, some are useful.”

Nicholas Jackson:

We use the term “signal design.” It relates to metrics that matter, but also asks:

what signals do we need to surface to explain what happened? It might be engagement levels—how many members open emails, for instance. Signal design isn’t just for data scientists; it’s for creative marketers to determine what things will ultimately help demonstrate commercial outcomes.

Andrew Mote:

The “holy grail” is being able to say that not only does our marketing bring in customers efficiently, but we also know the quality of the customer. If you can bring in low-claiming customers for a health insurer, or high capital inflows for a super fund, that is liquid gold.

Nicholas Jackson:

Practically, building a measurement spine means taking data from disparate systems along a customer journey and ingesting it into a central data warehouse. From that, we build a “semantic layer” where we connect data facts to meaning and relationships. This infrastructure is what you then build measurement on top of.

Strategic Differences: Retail vs. Standalone Funds

Darren Woolley:

Standalone industry funds are one thing, but retail funds are often part of larger multifaceted institutions like MLC, Colonial First State, or AMP. Is their challenge different?

Andrew Mote:

At a technical and marketing level, the challenges are similar. However, establishing your own super presence and voice when you are part of a massive brand is a unique hurdle. These organisations also face strategic questions about whether they really want to stay in the superannuation game. We often see them acquire a fund and then exit a few years later because it isn’t big enough for their core business.

Vanguard is a great example. They have a wonderful brand around low-cost index ETFs. I almost signed up for their super product myself until I realised there were better products in the market with lower fees. There was a disconnect between their brand promise and the product, and their core customer base wasn’t going to shift across if the product didn’t match the brand.

Darren Woolley:

We’ve also seen the growth of smaller, innovative funds like Australian Ethical, Future Super, Spaceship, and Superhero. How will they meet these regulatory requirements?

Nicholas Jackson:

In some ways, it is easier for them. If they are “digital-native” businesses, they aren’t encumbered by legacy systems and manual processes. I suspect the very big end of town is already working to solve these challenges. It’s the ones in the middle that are perhaps under-resourced and haven’t yet positioned themselves to tackle this APRA question.

Conclusion and Practical Advice

Darren Woolley:

If marketers in a super fund want insights or direction, what is the best way for them to reach you?

Nicholas Jackson:

Andrew and I developed a point of view and we invite anyone from a superannuation fund to talk to us. We would love the opportunity to share our analysis with a CMO or CEO. If they haven’t done the analysis themselves, there is a lot of value there. We can talk specifically about the practical ways marketers can address this challenge.

Darren Woolley:

Trillions of dollars are involved, and government oversight is vital when so many people’s future financial health depends on it. It will be interesting to see how this unfolds over the next 12 months. Thank you both for joining me. One final question before you go:

who do you both have your super funds with?

The post Managing Marketing: The Regulatory Impact On Superannuation Marketing In Australia appeared first on TrinityP3 Global Marketing Management Consultants.

Marketers are doubling down on channels where they can directly tie a dollar spent to a product purchased, using data-driven tech to capture existing demand rather than trying to manufacture new interest in a cautious market.

However, this aggressive pivot to digital performance comes at a time when the technical foundation of digital tracking is eroding. As privacy regulations tighten and third-party cookies finally dissolve into irrelevance, marketers are facing a steep “signal loss” crisis. The reliance on algorithmic optimization means that ad platforms require vast amounts of data to target effectively. Yet, precisely when marketers need this data most, tracking mechanisms are delivering less of it. This creates a high-stakes challenge: brands are spending record amounts on digital channels while simultaneously losing the granular visibility required to measure exactly which ad drove which sale.

To survive this paradox, the immediate mandate for Australian marketing teams is a radical reinvestment in first-party data strategies. Marketers can no longer rely on external tech platforms to do the heavy lifting of audience profiling. Instead, they are being forced to build their own “walled gardens” by incentivizing consumers to log in, share their information, and consent to tracking through loyalty programs, premium content, and personalized digital experiences. The true challenge of 2026 isn’t just spending money on digital ads, it’s ensuring your brand owns the underlying data infrastructure required to make those ads work.

Three Things Marketers Must Do Right Now

1. Build a “Privacy by Design” Value Exchange

Marketers need to shift away from invasive browser tracking and focus heavily on capturing first-party and zero-party data (data users intentionally share). To do this, you must give consumers a transparent reason to opt-in. This means designing clear value exchanges—such as highly personalized digital ecosystems, exclusive loyalty perks, or locked premium content—where consumers willingly trade their data for genuine utility.

2. Transition Technical Infrastructures (Server-Side & Clean Rooms)

Because web browsers are blocking traditional tracking, brands must shift their technical setups. This means moving to server-side tracking(where data is tracked directly from your website server rather than the user’s browser) and utilizing Data Clean Rooms. Data Clean Rooms allow you to securely match your first-party customer data with media partners or publishers (like retail media networks) to measure ad success without ever exposing raw, personally identifiable information (PII).

3. Reset Measurement via AI-Driven Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM)

With individual-user click tracking dying out, relying on standard digital attribution dashboards will lead to flawed budget decisions. Marketers must transition to macro-level measurement, such as AI-driven Marketing Mix Modelling (MMM). This allows teams to ingest multi-channel sales data, product returns, and economic factors rapidly, giving a much faster, privacy-compliant view of true marketing effectiveness across both digital and physical environments.

How TrinityP3 Can Help

As an independent marketing management consultancy completely free from the bias of specific technology vendors or media holding companies, TrinityP3 is uniquely positioned to help Australian marketers navigate this operational disruption. They help bridge the gap between marketing, technology, and procurement in four distinct ways:

• Data & Privacy Maturity Audits: TrinityP3 assesses your current data infrastructure and helps map a transition strategy from third-party tracking reliance to true first-party data ownership. They can take your team through a Data Privacy and Security Health Check to pinpoint data siloes and compliance gaps between marketing, legal, and IT.
• MarTech Stack Alignment & Objective Evaluation: Many tech transformations end up being costly and underutilized. TrinityP3 helps you audit, select, and align your MarTech tools (like Consent Management Platforms or Customer Data Platforms) based strictly on what your business needs to survive signal loss, ensuring you aren’t just buying “shiny new tech” without operational purpose.
• Agency Contract & Capability Benchmarking: Because media models are changing rapidly, your current agency contracts might still be optimized for an outdated cookie-based world. TrinityP3 evaluates and benchmarks media agency capabilities, transparency clauses, and remits to ensure your agency roster has the technical skill sets required to handle server-side tracking, retail media, and privacy-first buying.
• Operational & Structural Transformation: Moving to a privacy-first, data-driven model requires cross-functional agility. TrinityP3 designs structural roadmaps to help marketing departments break down internal siloes, ensuring data analytics, privacy compliance, and creative execution are working in sync rather than in isolation.

Feeling your current marketing tech investment is under delivering? Looking to squeeze more out of your martech stack? Read more on how we can advise you on optimizing your marketing technology. Or contact us for a confidential conversation on how to get more from your marketing technology.

The post Your agency contracts and tech stacks may be outdated in the $4.9 billion digital market appeared first on TrinityP3 Global Marketing Management Consultants.

At TrinityP3, we don’t just consult for brands; we are the connective tissue between marketers and the agencies that serve them. We offer a comprehensive ecosystem designed to help agencies of all types—from creative boutiques to global media powerhouses—sharpen their competitive edge.

Here is how your agency can partner with us to ensure you aren’t just in the game, but leading it.

1. The Foundation: The TrinityP3 Agency Register

The first step in any relationship with TrinityP3 is visibility. Our Agency Register is the primary database our consultants use when conducting agency searches and selections for our brand clients.

• What it is: A proprietary, searchable database where agencies maintain detailed profiles of their capabilities, culture, and client lists.

• The Benefit: It ensures you are “on the radar” when we are building long-lists for major pitches. If we don’t know your latest capabilities, we can’t recommend you.

• Why Engage: It is a zero-cost way to ensure your agency is represented accurately in the rooms where decisions are made. An up-to-date profile is your 24/7 digital credential.

2. Proof of Momentum: The New Business Register

In marketing, success breeds success. Our New Business Register tracks the movement of accounts across the industry, culminating in our highly anticipated Annual New Business Report.

• What it is: A platform for agencies to record their recent wins (and retentions).

• The Benefit: This data contributes to the industry’s most respected report on agency growth. Recording your wins ensures your agency’s momentum is quantified and recognized by the broader market.

• Why Engage: High placement in the New Business Report validates your agency’s performance to prospective clients and boosts internal morale. It’s about owning your narrative of success.

3. Industry Intelligence: State of the Pitch Research

Between July and December each year, we conduct the State of the Pitch research. This is the industry’s “pulse check” on the health of the pitch process.

• What it is: An annual survey gathering data from agencies and marketers on the costs, efficiencies, and outcomes of pitching.

• The Benefit: By contributing, you gain access to the collective findings, helping you understand how your pitching efficiency compares to industry benchmarks.

• Why Engage: Your participation helps us advocate for better, fairer pitching standards across the industry. It gives you a voice in shaping the future of how new business is won.

4. Operational Excellence: The Agency Operating Index (AOI)

Is your agency actually ready for the growth you’re chasing? The Agency Operating Index is a diagnostic tool designed for senior management.

• What it is: A comprehensive assessment of your agency’s internal operations, from resource management to workflow and profitability.

• The Benefit: It identifies “drag factors” that are hurting your margins or causing staff burnout. It provides a clear roadmap to becoming “growth ready.”

• Why Engage: Scaling an inefficient agency only scales the problems. The AOI ensures your foundation is rock-solid before you add the weight of new business.

5. Sharpening the Sword: Credentials and Positioning Review

Too many agencies sound exactly the same. “We are a data-driven, creative-led agency focused on results.” Sound familiar? It does to us too—because we hear it every day.

• What it is: A deep-dive workshop with a TrinityP3 consultant to review how you present your agency to the world.

• The Benefit: We provide the “client-side” perspective. We tell you what lands, what’s white noise, and where your true “Unicorn” quality lies.

• Why Engage: If your conversion rate from “chemistry” to “shortlist” is low, your positioning is likely the culprit. This review fixes the leak in your sales funnel.

6. The Post-Game Analysis: Pitch Reviews

Whether you won or lost, there is always a “why” that the client isn’t telling you.

• What it is: A forensic review of a recent pitch—from the RFI response to the final presentation.

• The Benefit: We provide objective, unvarnished feedback on your performance. We analyze the gaps between what the client asked for and what you delivered.

• Why Engage: Learning from a win is smart; learning from a loss is essential. This engagement prevents you from repeating expensive mistakes in your next pursuit.

7. Strategic Foresight: Market Overviews

The agency landscape is shifting under the weight of AI, in-housing, and specialist consultants. Do you know where you fit in the five-year horizon?

• What it is: A bespoke briefing for agency leadership on market trends, competitor movements, and emerging client requirements.

• The Benefit: It allows you to pivot your service offering ahead of the curve, rather than reacting to a declining market.

• Why Engage: Strategy is about making choices. A Market Overview gives you the data needed to make informed choices about where to invest your agency’s resources.

8. Commercial Clarity: Agency Remuneration Workshops

The “race to the bottom” on fees is a choice. We help agencies move from “cost-plus” models to “value-based” remuneration.

• What it is: A workshop designed to help agency leaders understand different commercial models and how to negotiate them effectively.

• The Benefit: It empowers your team to have more confident, sophisticated commercial conversations with procurement and marketing departments.

• Why Engage: Most agencies leave significant margin on the table because they lack the data or the framework to defend their value. We provide both.

9. Benchmarking: The Ad Cost Checker

Data is the ultimate equalizer in a fee negotiation.

• What it is: A subscription-based platform that allows agencies to benchmark their fees and hourly rates against anonymized market data.

• The Benefit: You can see exactly where your rates sit—are you underpricing your senior talent or overpricing your production?

• Why Engage: It removes the guesswork. When a procurement lead tells you your rates are “above market,” the Ad Cost Checker allows you to respond with facts, not feelings.

Why TrinityP3?

Agencies often view consultants with a degree of trepidation. At TrinityP3, we believe the best results for marketers come from healthy, profitable, and high-performing agencies. We aren’t here to squeeze your margins; we are here to help you articulate your value and optimize your delivery.

Working with us isn’t just about winning the next pitch—it’s about building a more resilient, visible, and commercially viable business.

Your Next Step

The most successful agencies we work with don’t wait for a pitch to engage us; they build a relationship with us long before the RFI arrives.

Would you like me to schedule an initial discovery call to see which of these registers or reviews is the most immediate priority for your agency’s growth plan?

The post The Strategic Partnership: How Agencies Can Fuel Growth and Value with TrinityP3 appeared first on TrinityP3 Global Marketing Management Consultants.

As the marketing landscape faces “twin evil forces” of increasing uncertainty and growing complexity, the conversation dives into how agencies must move beyond simple efficiency to drive true business effectiveness. 

And they address the future of partnership, highlighting why being a proactive partner means knowing a client’s business inside out to solve complex commercial challenges rather than just selling media solutions.

You can listen to the podcast here:

Follow Managing Marketing on Soundcloud, Podbean, TuneIn, Stitcher, Spotify, Apple Podcast and Amazon Podcasts.

“You’re our agency, please look after this ’cause we’ve got enough to do already”.

Transcription (Edited):

Darren Woolley:

Hi, I’m Darren Woolley, founder and CEO of Trinity P3 Marketing Management Consultancy, and welcome to Managing Marketing, a weekly podcast where we discuss the issues and opportunities facing marketing, media, and advertising with industry thought leaders and practitioners.

I’ve often stated that in my many years of working with marketers, I’ve never met a marketer with too much budget. It always feels like marketers need to do so much more with so little. In the face of growing complexity in the marketplace – with the fragmentation of media channels and audiences – markers feel like they have to be everywhere all at once. Yet the cost of this is typically prohibitive.

Sure, AI promises that agencies can do so much more with less, but in the media world, what does that mean? To answer these questions and so much more, please welcome the trinity of experts from Starcom Australia:

CEO Matt Houltham, Chief Operating Officer Louise Romeo, and Chief Client & Growth Officer Scott McCaffrey.

Matt, I’ll start with you. Where is the pressure coming from, and as an agency leader, how do you deal with that on a day-to-day basis?

Matt Houltham:

I think you summed up where the pressure is coming from quite well in your opening. There are twin ‘evil forces’ at play at the moment driving a huge amount of uncertainty for marketers and, simultaneously, driving a huge amount of additional complexity. The combination of those things is creating a situation where budgets are constrained.

I saw a statistic a few weeks ago talking to global CMOs regarding plans for 2026; it said 70% of them had budgets that were either going down or staying flat. In that context, it’s very hard to do ‘more’ with a budget that’s going backwards. Uncertainty drives challenges around business planning, supply chain access, and competitive landscapes. Meanwhile, complexity arises from a changing media landscape, evolving consumer behaviour, and AI collapsing the funnel.

The Four Pillars of Maximising Media Budgets

Matt Houltham:

In our view, there are four key areas where brands need to focus if they’re going to get more from limited resources.

1. Audience Accuracy: Going after the right audiences. There’s a massive amount of wastage in targeting the wrong people. A Rakuten Marketing survey recently showed global CMOs admitting they likely waste 26% of their budget talking to the wrong audiences in the wrong channels. In Australia, that’s potentially upwards of $5 billion left on the table.
2. Optimised Touchpoints: Turning up in the right places. It’s never been easier to reach people, but it’s never been harder to cut through and engage them.
3. Creative Cut-Through: Being more creative. Media has a massive role in amplifying a good idea, not just distributing it.
4. Media Creativity: Finding creative ways to use the channels themselves.

Darren Woolley:

That 26% wastage figure is fascinating. It reminds me of the old saying, “Half my budget is wasted; I just don’t know which half.” Today, we have thousands of advertising opportunities, and new ones pop up every day. That is the heart of the complexity – reaching the right person at the right time in a meaningful way.

Operational Excellence: From Efficiency to Effectiveness

Darren Woolley:

Louise, it used to be called ‘having a strategy,’ but I feel marketers are really struggling with defining what they actually want. How does this change the way you bring the resources of the agency to bear?

Louise Romeo:

You’re absolutely right. When we think about how the business is operating, it comes back to the business strategy. But within the agency, we are shifting from old definitions of ‘operational excellence’. In the past, it was all about driving efficiencies – tighter processes and getting to market quickly.

Now, with technology, automation, and AI, we have to think about how operational excellence can drive effectiveness. It’s about setting up the agency to be AI-enabled or technology-enabled but also designing workflows that allow the teams to exercise better judgment quickly. The market changes so fast – a client might communicate a sudden shift, and we need to adapt the campaign immediately. We call this ‘adaptive intelligence’. The agencies that win will be the ones that can change at the same pace as the market.

Darren Woolley:

Hasn’t that always been the case, though? Or has the timeline just sped up? It feels like the 13-week planning cycle for a TV campaign is a relic of the 20^th century.

Matt Houltham:

It has definitely sped up, but it’s also more complicated. Clients are asking us to think more broadly. We are planning across PESO – Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned media. We’re also being asked to operate like light consultants – helping them see around the corner, helping them use first-party data, and activating their adtech. Those [roles] weren’t the remit of a media agency five or ten years ago. Agility now underpins everything.

Navigating the Overwhelmed Client Landscape

Darren Woolley:

Scott, you work across a multitude of clients. Not all clients have the same needs – some are in different stages of maturity or different categories. How do you identify those needs?

Scott McCaffrey:

Every client is feeling overwhelmed right now. There’s too much data, too many choices, and too many decisions. Agencies that succeed are the ones that reduce that complexity and provide a clear point of view.

We do this by anchoring everything in a business outcome. We are moving away from traditional media metrics and moving toward business metrics.

Darren Woolley:

That’s a big breakthrough. Many marketers are given a budget but aren’t given the finance-level data to see what’s actually working.

Scott McCaffrey:

100%. Often, we’ll get a brief with multiple KPIs. We have to sit with the client and figure out which one is actually going to drive the outcome for their business. We’ve evolved to be an extension of their marketing team. At Starcom, we’ve had relationships for decades with some clients, which allows us to evolve alongside them.

Darren Woolley:

Long-term relationships are a sign of stability, but there’s often a fear of stagnation. How do you keep it fresh?

Scott McCaffrey:

You keep it fresh by being integrated. Because we know where the business is going (we’re in the board meetings), we can future-proof the strategy. We might wrap a digital transformation capability around a traditional client’s business. The benefit for the client is they aren’t constantly retraining a new agency. We know the business as well as they do, but we evolve at the pace of the market.

The “Trust Bank”: Trust as a Loan, Not a Gift

Darren Woolley:

We’ve discussed trust quite a bit. Scott, where do you think trust starts?

Scott McCaffrey:

You definitely don’t get trust just because you win a pitch. You win a pitch because of the skill you showed. You build trust over time through the relationship. I talk to our teams about a ‘Trust Bank’. You build up credit over time, but one mistake can erode it. You have to constantly build it back up through results and showing up the right way.

Darren Woolley:

I’ve always seen trust as a loan. No one appoints an agency they don’t trust, but they loan you that trust, and it comes with a heavy interest rate. You have to pay it back over time. The first big payback is usually the first disaster – how the agency responds when something goes wrong.

Scott McCaffrey:

That resonates. You’re almost constantly in pitch mode, because client expectations are higher than ever. If you haven’t paid off that trust loan in the first year of a three-year contract, you’re never going to be ahead.

Darren Woolley:

One of the most common reasons a client seeks a new agency is the feeling that the incumbent isn’t proactive. But agencies often mistake ‘proactivity’ for sales – offering more media to buy. True proactivity is about coming up with opportunities that drive business outcomes, not just selling more inventory.

The Reality of AI: Multipliers vs. Strategies

Darren Woolley:

Publicis Groupe was an early mover with the AI platform, Marcel. Scott, where are clients today regarding AI?

Scott McCaffrey:

AI is the hot topic in every meeting. Most clients are in the infancy stage – they don’t have a fully progressed strategy yet. They are looking to us for leadership. We’re doing tiered training for our teams because that’s where we have to start.

Louise Romeo:

We tell clients that AI is a multiplier, not the strategy itself. There’s a part in the middle where humans and technology coexist. We’re embedding these tools to deliver better results. But the pace of change is so fast that we have to constantly educate ourselves to move from mere experimentation to strategic application.

Darren Woolley:

There are two streams:

productivity and performance. I worry that if senior people use AI to get more done, where does the next generation come from? Senior media people usually start with grunt work to understand the plumbing of the industry. If AI does the grunt work, how do juniors learn?

Louise Romeo:

We see AI as an investment in talent. The tasks they do today will be different in the future. We have to re-skill our teams for critical judgment and creativity in media. That way, we move them from task output to higher-level thinking.

Matt Houltham:

AI should free up time to spend with the client – understanding their business issues or thinking creatively. It enables better insights by synthesising large amounts of data. But you still need the human in the loop to manage hallucinations or errors.

The Return to ‘M-Shaped’ Talent and Human Creativity

Darren Woolley:

Louise, how do you attract great talent to an industry that often has a negative narrative?

Louise Romeo:

It’s a wonderful industry. We focus on ‘M-shaped’ talent – people who have a craft specialism but are also great connectors across different media ecosystems. We want our teams to feel they are learning something new every day. Happy teams equal happy clients.

Matt Houltham:

The efficiency of AI is important, but the real value is in the insight. AI is great at looking at patterns from the past. However, most sales effects in advertising come from the creative idea and the message, not just the channel.

If we aren’t talking about whether creative is fit for purpose, we’re missing a trick. We work closely with creative agencies to ensure the message and the media deployment work synergistically. I’ve even seen some newer Marketing Mix Models (MMM) claiming they can now measure the creative component.

Darren Woolley:

That’s the ‘holy grail – attributing the impact of content. There’s no point in having someone’s attention if you have nothing worthwhile to show them. I like that CFOs are getting more involved and that marketers are taking a more commercial approach.

Thank you, Matt, Louise, and Scott, for joining us and sharing these insights into the future of Starcom and the wider media landscape.

The post Managing Marketing: What Being A Media Agency Partner Means In An AI World appeared first on TrinityP3 Global Marketing Management Consultants.

In the marketing landscape, the transition from “voluntary ethical guidelines” to “mandatory legal frameworks” appears complete. As a marketing management expert at TrinityP3, we’ve seen the industry move from debating what is right to frantically assisting marketers and their agencies to manage the risks.

With the EU AI Act enforceable from August 2026 and a wave of state-level laws in the US (California’s SB 942 and Colorado’s AI Act) now in full effect, the “wait and see” approach to AI governance is officially a legal liability.

Key Takeaways: AI Compliance

• Transparency Mandates: Mandatory watermarking and disclosure of synthetic content are now legal requirements in major jurisdictions.
• Liability for Hallucinations: Brands are legally responsible for AI-generated misinformation, regardless of the vendor’s disclaimer.
• Data Provenance: New “Right to Know” laws require brands to disclose the training data sources used by their generative AI tools.
• Algorithmic Discrimination: Regulators (FTC, ACCC) are treating biased AI targeting as a violation of civil rights and consumer protection laws.
• Contractual Sovereignty: Master Service Agreements (MSAs) must now include specific clauses for AI IP indemnification and “Zero Data Retention.”

The Top 10 Legal & Regulatory Compliance Issues for Marketers

1. Disclosure of Synthetic Content (The Transparency Mandate)

By mid-2026, disclosure is no longer a “best practice”—it’s the law. The EU AI Act and California’s SB 942 require that any AI-generated image, video, or audio that could be mistaken for a real person or event carry technical markers (metadata) and visible disclosures.

Compliance Risk: Failing to label a “deepfake” or synthetic influencer can lead to fines of up to 7% of global turnover under the most stringent regimes. Marketers must ensure their suppliers are embedding “latent disclosures” that persist even if the file is edited.

2. Liability for AI “Hallucinations” & Misinformation

If your AI chatbot promises a discount or misquotes a product’s safety specifications, you are legally bound by that claim. In 2026, courts are increasingly rejecting the “technical error” defence.

Compliance Risk: Marketers are being held to the same standard as a human salesperson. Regulatory bodies like the FTC (under the March 11, 2026 Policy Statement) treat AI hallucinations as “unfair or deceptive acts.” This necessitates a robust Agentic Auditor framework—using one AI to police the output of another before it reaches the consumer.

3. Intellectual Property (IP) & Training Data Provenance

The “AI Training Data Transparency Act” (California AB 2013) now mandates that developers publish summaries of their training datasets. For marketers, using a tool trained on unlicensed copyrighted material is a ticking litigation bomb.

Compliance Risk: Using AI-generated assets without verified IP Indemnification from your supplier leaves your brand vulnerable to secondary infringement claims. Marketers must demand “Clean Data” certification from every AI vendor in their supply chain.

4. Algorithmic Discrimination & Bias Auditing

Automated audience targeting is under the microscope. Regulators now use “disparate impact” tests to see if AI models are inadvertently excluding protected classes from housing, credit, or employment ads.

Compliance Risk: Under Colorado’s AI Act (effective June 2026), deployers of “high-risk” AI must conduct annual impact assessments. If your programmatic AI shifts spend away from certain zip codes based on demographic proxies, you face significant civil penalties for discriminatory practice.

5. Data Sovereignty & “Model Ingestion”

Privacy laws like the GDPR and CCPA have evolved. The issue isn’t just how you collect data, but whether you’ve allowed that data to be “ingested” to train a third-party LLM.

Compliance Risk: If a customer invokes their “Right to be Forgotten,” and their data has already been used to train a global model, you face a technical and legal impossibility. Compliance requires using Private AI Instances where data is never used to train the base model.

6. Rights of Publicity & Digital Likeness

The unauthorized use of digital clones (voice or image) of celebrities—or even customers—is now heavily regulated.

Compliance Risk: Marketers must obtain explicit “Digital Likeness” waivers. Relying on “AI-generated persons who look like” a celebrity is increasingly seen as a violation of the NO FAKES Act or similar state-level right-of-publicity laws.

7. AI-Washing & Substantiation of Claims

The FTC and ACCC are aggressively targeting “AI-Washing”—the act of claiming a product is “AI-powered” when it merely uses basic automation or manual processes.

Compliance Risk: Following the 2026 Growth Cave and Workado resolutions, marketers must be able to substantiate exactly how AI improves their product’s effectiveness. Exaggerated efficiency claims are now a primary target for consumer protection enforcement.

8. Section 5 Compliance & “Dark Patterns” in AI

AI is being used to create “highly adaptive” interfaces that nudge consumers toward purchases using psychological vulnerabilities.

Compliance Risk: Regulators now classify AI-driven “predatory nudging” as a deceptive dark pattern. Any AI system that adapts in real-time to exploit a consumer’s emotional state (detected via biometric data) is likely in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act or the Digital Services Act (DSA).

9. Supplier Accountability & The Chain of Responsibility

Many marketers are “inheriting” compliance failures from their agencies or MarTech suppliers.

Compliance Risk: You cannot outsource your liability. In 2026, TrinityP3 recommends that all MSAs include an AI Compliance Addendum. This should define the supplier’s responsibility for bias testing, hallucination mitigation, and the use of licensed training data.

10. Auditability & “Explainable AI” (XAI)

If a regulator asks why a customer was denied a service or served a specific price by your AI, “the algorithm decided” is no longer a legal answer.

Compliance Risk: Marketers must maintain an AI Decision Log. Regulatory frameworks now demand a level of “Explainability”—the ability to provide a plain-language explanation of the factors that influenced an automated decision.

AI Compliance Checklist

This provides a baseline for auditing your marketing operations.

• [ ] Watermarking: Does our synthetic content include latent metadata for detection?
• [ ] IP Indemnification: Have all AI suppliers signed an IP indemnity for their output?
• [ ] DPA Updates: Do our Data Processing Agreements specifically prohibit “model training” on our client/customer data?
• [ ] Bias Testing: Have we performed a “Disparate Impact” audit on our programmatic targeting this quarter?
• [ ] Hallucination Protocol: Is there a human-in-the-loop sign-off for all AI-generated consumer-facing claims?
• [ ] Regulatory Mapping: Does our AI use-case list identify “high-risk” systems under the EU AI Act or Colorado AI Act?

FAQ: AI Legal & Regulatory Landscape

Who is liable if an AI-generated ad is misleading?

The brand (the advertiser) is ultimately liable. While you may have a right of recourse against your agency, consumer protection agencies (like the FTC or ACCC) hold the brand responsible for all commercial communications, regardless of the technology used to create them.

What is the penalty for not disclosing AI-generated content?

Under the EU AI Act, fines for non-compliance with transparency obligations can reach up to €15 million or 3% of total global annual turnover, whichever is higher. In the US, penalties vary by state but typically involve civil penalties per violation.

Can we use customer data to train our own AI models?

Only if you have explicit, informed consent that specifically mentions AI training. Standard “use for marketing purposes” clauses are increasingly seen as insufficient for the permanent ingestion of data into a machine learning model.

AI is no longer a “Wild West.” It is a highly regulated territory. The brands that will succeed are those that treat compliance not as a “legal hurdle,” but as a strategic foundation for long-term consumer trust.

Read more on our Marketing Transformation Practice and our Marketing Technology solutions. Or contact us about a no obligation conversation to explore how we can assist with your marketing effectiveness efforts.

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