A global beverage company ran marketing production through 80+ agencies across 40+ markets — with duplicated costs, opaque mark-ups and no single governed model.
VA rebuilt it into one governed operating model: a consolidated agency village, clear decision rights and validated costs, rolled out market by market.
Head of Creative Production, Head of Marketing Procurement, CFO
The strategic problem
A portfolio of over 30 brands ran creative, adaptation and production through a fragmented, market-by-market network of 80+ agencies and production houses, each market commissioning on its own terms. The same asset cost wildly different amounts across markets; mark-ups were bundled and invisible to Procurement; transcreation was duplicated dozens of times; and net-90/120 payment terms inflated every quote. There was no global baseline, no shared decision rights and no single owner of the ecosystem, so efficiency, speed and brand consistency leaked at once. This was not a sourcing problem; it was an operating-model problem.
Diagnose & Design
VA ran a marketing & production ecosystem audit and spend mapping & cost baseline analysis across 40+ markets – 18 months of data reconstructed into the first auditable global view – using AURA/FRC (Fulltime Ratecard Calculator) to reverse-engineer ratecards and valorise SOWs, then a gap & maturity assessment and market benchmarking of fees by market and brand. From there VA designed one governed operating model with explicit decision rights centre-to-market, governance design (RACI, KPI framework, scorecards), and a phased transformation roadmap – sequenced market by market rather than big-bang – quantifying the value at stake for the Board.
Ecosystem & Remuneration
Partner ecosystem design consolidated the network into a governed agency village with roster rationalisation (from 90 to 22 partners); remuneration model design moved from bundled mark-ups to output-based with harmonised global rate cards, plus fee benchmarking & validation and scoping & SOW design via AURA/Scoping Tool and AURA/Strategic Mapping Expectation, with AURA/FRC on finalists. Production was decoupled from creative so the brand contracts production directly while agencies keep creative integrity, and a hub-and-spoke transcreation model ended the duplicated adaptations.
Rollout & relationship management
Contracting & onboarding and handover, rollout & commitment tracking ran market by market rather than all at once: AURA/Planner back-planned the rollout to the two key go-live dates, tracking that every commitment made at pitch was honoured in delivery, while VA's relationship management sustained the designed model through the full rollout period – not only at kick-off – feeding the continuous improvement cycle.
Execution Oversight
Briefing & estimate review, bid governance (triple/double/direct award) above EUR 250k, production cost validation line by line, usage rights, talent & licensing management, and wrap & final reconciliation gave the agency village shared commercial rules; AURA/BMT (Budget Management Template) ran the production bid end to end, and payment terms were reset from net-90/120 to net-30/45 to protect supplier health and pricing integrity.
Performance Measurement
KPIs and scorecards defined in governance design are tracked via partner performance evaluation on a 90/180/360 appraisal cadence as each market goes live, with cost saving and cost avoidance reported separately and an executive dashboard signed off by CFO and CPO (today AURA delivers closure reports; full performance measurement is on the roadmap). Illustrative: 24% cost saving against the global baseline, 11% cost avoidance on re-quoted and de-scoped work, 30% faster time-to-market.
Why VA
The market sells one box: a pitch, an audit, a production review. VA governs the whole system end to end – diagnosis, ecosystem and remuneration, execution oversight, measurement – so the saving is structural margin the CFO can defend and a brand engine the CMO can scale.
Common questions
What is marketing production and agency ecosystem re-architecture?
It is the redesign of how a company buys and runs marketing production and agency services — moving from a fragmented, market-by-market network to one governed operating model with a consolidated agency village, clear decision rights and transparent, validated costs.
How does it cut cost without hurting creative quality?
By consolidating duplicated scopes into a lead-agency and specialist roster, validating production costs before commitment, and sequencing the transition market by market so delivery and creative continuity are never interrupted.
What outcomes are typical?
In this blind, illustrative example: around 24% lower cost, 11% cost avoidance and 30% faster time-to-market — figures benchmarked to sector evidence and to be confirmed against engagement data.