The $200bn black hole: Marketers wasting a third of budgets by giving agencies crap briefs, don’t even know their strategy is non-existent; here’s the proof and how to fix it

Professor Mark Ritson was right all along: “90 per cent of marketers fail to brief agencies effectively, and their failures begin with a total lack of strategy.” The headline findings of the Better Briefs Project and its research spanning 1,700 marketers and agencies make for grim reading. Marketers don’t even realise their briefs are mostly duds, yet agencies are “screaming for objectives”, according to report co-creators, strategists Pieter-Paul von Weiler and Matt Davies. Unless things improve, marketer tenures – and marketing and advertising’s standing within boardrooms – will continue to decline. But there are some very simple fixes. Applying them promises to repair the marketer-agency disconnect – and deliver advertising that moves the needle. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.