Letters

Partner or Vendor? What Agencies Mean to Clients

C’mon everybody, let’s get real. Neither media buying agencies nor their supposedly more glamorous counterparts at creative agencies, nor even their much-derided cousins at the big consulting firms, will ever enjoy true partnership status with their clients [Art & Commerce, June 4]. And why should we? Partners share both rewards and risks, and not even the most progressive performance-based compensation agreement would include the possibility of a negative number in the agency fee line.

For that matter, why would we even want to be our clients’ “partner”? True partnering would force us to lose objectivity.