WFA research shows that teams are looking at creative and production as well as media in their bid to identify savings for 2024
New research reveals that marketing procurement teams at big global brands are frustrated with their current KPIs and want to change. In particular they want to broaden the metrics of success beyond savings, with savings as currently defined not enough to prove the team is doing well in the current challenging economic circumstances.
Many feel frustrated that those who set their targets often lack marketing knowledge, only 52% said their target setters had “good” or “very good knowledge” of marketing. The result is that many are being asked to deliver blunt or disconnected objectives that are likely to make it harder for procurement to work effectively with marketers and deliver real value.
Setting and Delivering Targets in Marketing Procurement, produced in partnership with Flock Associates, reveals that half a decade after WFA launched Project Spring with the goal of transforming both perceptions and the role of procurement towards value rather than savings, most procurement teams are optimistic that they can do this.
Eighty five percent say they will add more value, beyond savings in 2024, 13% will add a similar amount of value and savings, and only 2% feel they will add less value than savings.
Based on responses from 51 senior marketing procurement executives at global multinationals spending a cumulative $114bn in marketing annually, the report explores the influence of metrics in shaping behaviours and looks at how marketing procurement plan to deliver additional business benefits in 2024.
Findings show that while media investments have been the main focus for hard savings in 2023 (64% said it was the main driver) and will continue to do so (53% in 2024), many brands are increasingly looking towards creative (19% said it was the main focus, up from 11% in 2023) and production (11% said it would become the main driver, up from 5%) for savings, taking advantage of technology advancements, including GenAI. The key to success for procurement teams is that they ensure they don’t solely focus on media and lose sight of the total picture.
