Due to the constant updates to the iOS operating systems requiring updates to the app, we have discontinued the Resource Rate Calculator app as of June 1, 2020. Instead, you can use the calculators here. Thank you.
Yes, technology is impacting all aspects of business and especially marketing. But, interestingly, there are very few search, pitch or marketing management consultants who invest in technology to innovate their processes to increase their utility or robustness.
Many are using relationship survey tools that have been around since last century or are calculating agency remuneration and compensation using a calculator and a spreadsheet.
In the first office, TrinityP3 (or P3 as it was then) inhabited back in 2000, we were sharing with a technology development start-up called Smart Solution Group. Russell Hibbert, who had left ShowAds to set up his tech solutions company, founded the company, and we shared their offices on Southbank Boulevard in Southbank, Melbourne.
It was a working environment full of ideas and projects, and it was highly infectious. There were daily discussions on workflow processes and platform development and integration, which led to us developing our very first online solution as an experiment and promoting the idea of ‘whole brain thinking’ which is the concept behind the P3 part of our logo.
Later we developed a system for automatically benchmarking Television Production Estimates, the failure of which was a valuable lesson in platform integration and integrated user experience.
But those early days have led to many successful developments of marketing management tools that our clients and we use and benefit from today and form the basis of the Verificom Toolbox. Here are six of them.
Agency Salary and Rate Calculator
Originally developed for the desktop and still found on our website here, the Agency Salary and Rate Calculator is an evergreen webpage with consistent daily visits looking to calculate hourly rates from annual salaries and visa versa.
This popularity led to the phone app we developed with Lomah Studios. It was based on the calculators we had built for our website. But it was also because of our understanding that the world was very much mobile. Instead of having to go to a website, users could pick up their phones and access the calculator without even requiring internet access.
Originally developed for the iOS platform, the app’s initial success led us to develop a version for Android and Windows Mobile.
Check out the Verificom Agency Salary and Rate Calculator here.
Ad Cost Checker
Ad Cost Checker is the Verificom Agency Rate Benchmarking tool. It is a database application developed by Pivotal Analytics and was driven by a belief that the huge amount of data we had on hand should be made readily available for everyone. The data comprised agency rates and fees across media, creative, account management, design, strategy and production, and for more than 20 markets and growing.
Marketers, advertisers, procurement and agencies were often asking us for the benchmarks, so in this way, we could make those benchmarks available for all to use. It provided us with a more structured and robust system to manage the huge amount of data we have on hand and continue to collect each day.
To find out more, check out the details here, or register to use the Ad Cost Checker system here.
Agency Fee Calculator
Soon after we commenced business, we were asked to assess and provide advice on agency fees and remuneration. The best approach is using a robust benchmarking methodology that not just looks at rates but can calculate the cost of delivering the scope of work or schedule of work the agency is producing.
In the past ten years, this system has evolved and become increasingly complex as a reflection of the complexity of the advertising and marketing services agencies provide. The system today has hundreds of scope outputs and thousands of benchmarks to provide a structured, reproducible and robust calculation of agency fees that have been tested across markets worldwide.
To find out more, check out the details on the evolution of the Verificom Agency Fee Calculator here.
Performance & Collaboration Evalu8ing
After many years of recommending the same ‘360 survey systems’ that still exist today, we were frustrated by their inability to measure, manage and maximise the roster of agencies. Instead of focusing on individual agency relationships, they ignored the important role of collaboration and co-creation in the advertising and marketing process.
I was sharing this insight with Marek Lis in New York and explained to him the basis of a system I had been working on to achieve the ability to manage a roster of agencies. He introduced me to Young Minds Australia, a software development company in Australia and Nepal, and together we developed Evalu8ing.
Since then, Evalu8ing has been used for roster performance and collaboration management locally, regionally and globally. It has also been used within agency networks and client companies to create performance alignment.
To find out more, check out the benefits of the system here.
The Agency Register
Having managed agency reviews and pitches for more than a decade, it became obvious very early on that we needed a robust and scalable way to keep track of the thousands of agencies across the multitude of disciplines and the breadth of markets.
The Agency Register is a searchable online database, also developed by Young Minds Australia, that allows agencies to register the essential details we require to recommend them to suitable advertisers. It also includes the ability to record and access performance and cultural observations made by the TrinityP3 consultants when visiting or working with those agencies.
To check out the benefits of the system, click here, or agencies can go to The Agency Register here to register.
Pitch Cost Calculator
With the launch of the Pitch Positive Pledge in the UK, led by ISBA and the IPA, TrinityP3 UK became one of the founding signatories to this initiative to decrease and eliminate the negative mental health impacts of the pitch process.
Following the launch, I was contacted by Arvind Hickman, Media Editor at Campaign, enquiring if TrinityP3 had a methodology for calculating the cost of the pitch process.
Using the data within the Verificom platform, we were able to build a calculator for the UK market that would calculate the cost of a pitch based on the type of pitch, number of agencies and more.
The Verificom Pitch Cost Calculator is available on the Campaign UK website. Or you can find it here.
FOLLOW-UP: The article, written by Arvind on the cost of pitching, was selected in Campaign’s top ten articles of the year – 2022.
What is coming up next?
We have several projects under development in this space and are constantly exploring new and innovative opportunities. What drives us is twofold: first, the desire to find new ways to provide our clients with greater knowledge and insight for achieving optimal marketing performance. The second is more personal, and that is when people ask me if I miss being ‘creative’, I answer, “Who says I am not creative anymore?”
