The Effects of the viscidity of the client-agency relationship and the agency\u27s expert power on the level of personalization in advertising campaigns

This study examines the effect of the viscidity of the corporate client-advertising agency relationship and of the expert power exercised by the agency on the level of personalization in the resultant print campaign. A phone survey of 250 advertising agencies nationwide provides statistical support to the findings. The results indicate that for those advertising agencies that perform a significant volume of work on a retainer basis, the expert power exercised by the agencies and the level of the viscidity of the relationship between the clients and the agencies are in close correlation to the level of personalization employed by the agencies. This suggests that clients are more likely to request a higher level of personalization if they have enjoyed a long-term relationship with an advertising agency, which has proven its competency over the course of many projects. It also suggests that a manufacturer of the digital color presses would be able to identify advertising agencies that are more likely to employ a high degree of variable data in their workflow. By inquiring if a particular advertising agency does a high volume of retainer-based work and by determining whether the agency regularly shows samples of previous work to its clients, a manufacturer of the digital color presses would be better able to identify prospective technology users. Overall, the proposed model is able to predict with 79% accuracy those advertising agencies that incorporate a high level of personalization in their workflow