Ray Media Advisory Wants To Fix Agency-Client Relationships Before They Break

As the agency landscape consolidates and AI changes workflows and teams, brand-agency partnerships are facing fresh tensions. The consultancy Ray Media Advisory has launched a new offering to keep these relationships healthy before they reach the point of no return. The Partnership Accelerator, available from today (March 31), is a way to proactively work on addressing pressures that can arise in the brand-client relationship early. It launches without clients, but is in talks with six stakeholders from the brand and agency side. Doug Ray, the founder of Ray Media Advisory, said that most agency relationships don’t fail overnight; they “drift” gradually. The accelerator encourages putting in “proactive and continuous” work to avoid that. Ray likens the relationship to a car: if you wait till the engine breaks down, then you have a big problem. “If you do regular tune ups, you can keep your engine performing at a high level,” he said. He leads the initiative alongside a group of senior advisors, including Donna Wiederkehr, former chief growth strategist and chief marketing officer at Dentsu, and Helen Johnsen, former global media director at Meta. Collectively, the team brings experience spanning client and agency side, including working with brands such as Procter & Gamble, Lego, and Burberry. Ray and Wiederkehr reference a few moments where the accelerator can be helpful, such as when a client has a new team as the result of an agency merger; when a CMO joins a brand and they want to reassess the existing partner; or when an agency has created a new product that hasn’t been properly introduced to a client. “There could be team changes, a change in ambition, new financial pressures, or they haven’t found the right creative idea yet that is going to drive business,” Wiederkehr adds. “So it's about how do we create an environment for that to be successful.” Ray believes this kind of service is needed now more than ever as the industry experiences “an incredible pace of change," putting pressure on partnerships. Compounding that are macro challenges from geopolitics to inflation to the proliferation of AI. “There is just so much pressure,” he added. The Partnership Accelerator includes a series of 10-12 week “sprints” that involve stakeholder diagnostics, operational and performance assessments, joint working sessions, and a 90-day “accountability framework.” After the diagnostic is complete, an action plan is formed. As a third party, Ray Media Advisory argues it is better positioned to find the real pain points. Wiederkehr is clear that the service isn’t a replacement of agency reviews or an attempt at “marriage counseling." Agency reviews have increasingly become the default response to underperformance. According to a study by Advertiser Perceptions, a single review can exceed $1 million in combined client and agency costs. The alternative, Wiederkehr says, is “engaging quickly and continuously to avoid any challenges and recalibrate the relationship on an ongoing basis.” The ultimate ambition, according to Ray, is for this type of work to become a “new discipline” or a “new muscle” to “create longer term more productive relationships.”

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Ray Media Advisory Wants To Fix Agency-Client Relationships Before They Break

New Partnership Accelerator proactively addresses tensions and pressures before things go south

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Hannah Bowler

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