Brands keep ditching time-based agency pay for outputs

A WFA and Agency Mania Solutions report across 69 multinationals ($147bn combined marketing spend) finds labour-based agency remuneration has fallen from 54% in 2011 to 17% today, while fixed-fee or output-based models grew from 20% to 35%. The caveat: 64-80% of brands say performance-based fees still make up under 20% of compensation today, and only 45% feel they have transparency into agency costing. WFA's Laura Forcetti: "AI is accelerating this transition by enabling agencies to complete many activities faster, making time an increasingly weak proxy for value."