ABSTRACT

Purpose: To explore changes in agency/client value co-creation, at a time when digital transformation is having a major impact on the marketing communications process. The theoretical framework of the research relates to value co-creation in the service-for-service provision, a fundamental aspect of Service-Dominant Logic (S-D Logic) theory.

Methodology/approach: The research was exploratory, primarily using qualitative methods. In addition, some quantitative survey data have also been included to demonstrate greater generalizability on certain key questions. Building on dyadic research with clients and their agencies, the current research includes a survey of agencies; interviews with clients and a follow up survey with clients.

Findings: The nature of service-for-service provision between clients and agencies is outlined. Many aspects of service are equally likely to be internally or externally provided. This high crossover particularly relates to supporting aspects of digital marketing. While much digital marketing appears to have initially been provided externally there seems to be a trend to bring these aspects of service in-house. The views of clients and agencies on their relationship, as being either transactional or a partnership, appears to be related to the degree of service required and provided.

Research implications: A service-for-service perspective is instructive in considering how changes in the external environment are impacting on what is done by agencies and what is done by clients. This new approach has the potential to enhance existing relationship based research in this context. The services required by clients depend on the resources that they already possess. Therefore, it is the absence of an operant resource that leads to the need for external service provision and in turn requires co-creation.

Practical implications: There are no hard and fast rules on what is provided by the agency and what is provided in-house. This relates particularly to digital aspects of marketing and suggests that the level of crossover is higher than historically. With digital media becoming such an important aspect of communicating with customers, this is particularly significant in considering the nature of the relationship between agency and client and whether it is seen as a partnership or transactional.

Originality/value/contribution: Historically, the dominant approach to analyzing agency/clients has been to focus on relationships. Taking a service-for-service approach is novel and relevant in analyzing a context in which digitization and media fragmentation has caused significant changes and where the perspectives of S-D Logic have the potential to provide new insights, explaining aspects that are not covered by taking purely a relationship approach. The contribution to S-D Logic is at the level of midrange theory development, through applying ideas from S-D – Logic in the context of the application, helping to refine and add to the credibility of the theory. This exploration of the co-creation of value between clients and their agencies demonstrates the applicability of a framework from S-D Logic in a context that is an important part of marketing management.

摘要

Purpose: To explore changes in agency/client value co-creation, at a time when digital transformation is having a major impact on the marketing communications process. The theoretical framework of the research relates to value co-creation in the service-for-service provision, a fundamental aspect of Service-Dominant Logic (S-D Logic) theory.

Methodology/approach: The research was exploratory, primarily using qualitative methods. In addition, some quantitative survey data have also been included to demonstrate greater generalizability on certain key questions. Building on dyadic research with clients and their agencies, the current research includes a survey of agencies; interviews with clients and a follow up survey with clients.

Findings: The nature of service-for-service provision between clients and agencies is outlined. Many aspects of service are equally likely to be internally or externally provided. This high crossover particularly relates to supporting aspects of digital marketing. While much digital marketing appears to have initially been provided externally there seems to be a trend to bring these aspects of service in-house. The views of clients and agencies on their relationship, as being either transactional or a partnership, appears to be related to the degree of service required and provided.

研究意义：服务对服务的观点对于考虑外部环境的变化如何影响代理机构所做的事情以及客户所做的事情具有指导意义。在这种情况下，这种新方法可能会增强现有的基于关系的研究。客户所需的服务取决于他们已经拥有的资源。因此，缺少操作资源导致需要提供外部服务，进而需要共同创建。

实际含义：对于代理商提供的内容和内部提供的内容，没有严格的规定。这尤其涉及营销的数字化方面，并表明交叉水平高于历史水平。随着数字媒体成为与客户沟通的重要方面，这对于考虑代理与客户之间的关系的性质以及将其视为合伙关系还是交易关系尤其重要。

创意/价值/贡献：从历史上看，分析代理商/客户的主要方法一直是关注关系。在分析数字化和媒体碎片导致重大变化以及SD Logic的观点有可能提供新见解的潜力的背景下，采用“服务对服务”的方法是新颖且相关的，它解释了纯逻辑分析无法涵盖的方面关系方法。通过在应用程序上下文中应用SD – Logic的思想，有助于对SD Logic进行中级理论开发，从而有助于完善和增加该理论的可信度。对客户及其代理商之间共同创造价值的这种探索表明，在市场营销管理的重要组成部分中，SD Logic框架的适用性。