• by Pat LaPointe , Op-Ed Contributor, October 10, 2008

The formal announcement of WPP's acquisition of TNS has me wondering, who is this good for (other than WPP and some TNS shareholders)? What are the metrics for success in this deal?

Clients, promised the benefits of synergy (a.k.a. "effectiveness") and efficiency, may find that objectivity and differentiability are more important metrics. Let me explain....

In the advertising business, there is no more influential force than the global account director. They are the cream of the crop; the most articulate, persuasive, and polished people on the planet. Which is how they get to sit at the right hand of the client company CMO and provide advice and counsel on all matters relating to brand and customer marketing. Yet these people are paid to maximize the profitability derived from each account in their portfolio. Despite lots of talk about "big-picture" and "long-term perspective," their compensation and longevity are directly related to hitting quarterly targets. And since good jobs for global account directors are about as plentiful as good parts for actresses over 50, it should be no surprise that global account directors jealously guard the continuity of their client revenue streams by controlling access to the key client decision-makers. They need to make sure that all the component parts of the agency network are "on-strategy" and "aligned."

In the research business, the most influential people are the technocrats: the people who design surveys, select samples, run multivariate analyses, and produce bubble charts condensing complex statistical subtleties into actionable advice. Their brilliance stems from asking the right questions and seeking the technical path to the most insightful answers (within a budget and timeframe). They tend to be introspective as a whole -- with quieter and less dynamic personalities. They don't generally have the "presence" of a typical global account director.

When agency and research supplier each have independent relationships with the client, they often disagree about the direction or the interpretation of success. The client gets to hear both sides of the argument and presumably makes a more informed decision as a result. But when they are merged into the same team, and placed (formally or informally) under the overall watch of a global account director, those disagreements are no longer transparent to the client. Instead, the client is presented with at best some additional "options," and at worst, a single mediocre solution wrapped in statistically valid rationale. At this point, the fox is actually running the henhouse.

In time, the dominant power of the agency account director nudges out the most independent research minds, and replaces them with more "compliant" ones who know a good commercial solution when they are told one. Objectivity and transparency walk out the door, replaced by efficiency derived from more streamlined methods and processes replicated hundreds of times over -- not because they reliably succeed, but because they hardly ever fail. Is this the measure of "effectiveness"?

And in an era where we desperately need more independently minded researchers to help figure out the implications of fragmentation across traditional and digital touch points, is this even helpful?

So, the agency holding company gets the benefit of non-advertising revenue streams as a hedge against economic downturns.

The shareholders of the research firm all receive a nice cash benefit from their years of hard work.

Employees get, er, nothing. Maybe less than nothing.

And the clients -- they get the burden of having to be ever-more diligent in soliciting and accepting advice.

Where's the efficiency in that?