Agency Relations

NETWORKING BREAKFAST (9:00 – 9:45AM)
INTRODUCTIONS (9:45 – 10:00AM)


I. AETNA:  AGENCY CONSOLIDATION CASE STUDY (10:00 – 11:00AM)
Agency governance ensures that marketing agencies provide the most appropriate resources at mutually agreed upon prices and defined terms of service. Aetna once had a creative and digital agency roster of 200 suppliers and they have consolidated them down to just 9 key players. In this session, Julie Chalifoux, Portfolio Manager – Aetna will share their consolidation success story including how they are able to integrate and manage more efficiently while improving quality and saving time and resources.

Speaker:
Julie Chalifoux, Portfolio Manager – Aetna


II. ADVERTISING AGE:  2014 AGENCY ROUNDUP AND BEST PRACTICES (11:15AM – 12:00PM)
Nat Ives, Deputy Managing Editor – Advertising Age and Alexandra Bruell, Reporter – Advertising Age will provide a roundup of this year's major pitches and agency news along with their perspective on best practices for ANA Agency Relations Committee members.

Speakers:
Alexandra Bruell, Reporter – Advertising Age
Nat Ives, Deputy Managing Editor – Advertising Age


LUNCH (12:00 – 1:00PM)


III. IKEA'S APPROACH TO SUCCESSFUL AGENCY/CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS (1:00-2:00PM)
IKEA believes that a strong and successful long-term agency/client relationship is about transparency and openness. They recognized that they needed agency partners who truly understand their business and can challenge them to think differently. In this session, Christine Whitehawk, Communications Manager – IKEA North America, LLC will share their agency relationship journey, lessons learned, and how other marketers can leverage the power of transparency and openness to drive great creative and business results.

Speaker:
Christine Whitehawk, Communications Manager – IKEA North America, LLC


IV. TRANSPARENCY ISSUES IN POST PRODUCTION (2:00-2:30PM)
AICE is a "sister" industry trade association to the ANA. They represent the independent creative editorial, design, visual effects, color grading, and audio post production companies. AICE has just released a position paper titled, A Push for Greater Transparency, Ethics, and Fairness.

According to AICE, "The proliferation of in-house editorial and post services offered by ad agencies is an area of growing concern for the independent post production community. While these capabilities have been available for some time, the business practices surrounding their current implementation and their impact on agency clients and the independent post production community has motivated AICE to raise questions about transparency, ethics and fair competition for advertisers, agencies and the industry at large. Despite being touted by agencies as efficient ways to edit and finish work faster and cheaper – a claim not always supported by facts – in-house facilities exist largely to create additional revenue streams for the agencies themselves." In this session, we will help educate ANA Agency Relations Committee members on this issue and provide suggestions to drive transparency among their agencies.

Speakers:
Rachelle Madden, Executive Director – AICE
Dee Tagert, President – AICE New York Board