A report from the European Affiliation of Communications Businesses (EACA), developed in partnership with Kantar, exposes a basic contradiction on the coronary heart of agency-client relationships. Almost all CMOs surveyed – 94% – consider businesses can operate as true companions they will belief. But almost half ran a pitch inside the previous 12 months, and 65% of these pitches resulted in an company change.

The CMOs’ Expectations Report analyzed responses from 141 firms throughout 22 European markets. EACA labored with Kantar to research each closed-question analytics and open-ended semantic evaluation, delivering a hierarchy of what convinces CMOs when choosing or persevering with to work with businesses. The analysis lined 95% of respondents in advertising and marketing, communication, or high administration roles throughout shopper items, banking, insurance coverage, power, expertise, and providers sectors.

In line with the report, partnerships lasting 5 years or longer produce far simpler communications than these with shorter tenures. Analysis into Effie Europe 2025 entries demonstrates that long-term relationships correlate with effectiveness and success. But fixed turnover makes it more durable for businesses to behave as true companions.

Belief emerged as the highest issue, chosen as first alternative by 49% of CMOs. Deep enterprise involvement adopted at 41%, each rating nicely forward of creativity. Nevertheless, each can solely develop over time and face fixed undermining from inefficient repitching. Six out of 10 profitable concepts from pitches by no means get applied.

Artistic excellence stays vital – a top-three issue for 72% of respondents – however solely when paired with strategic intelligence, operational reliability, and powerful model stewardship.

“This report confirms the anecdotal proof from the trade that the company remit is continuous to broaden, with shopper expectations at an all-time excessive, whereas output timelines are shrinking,” in keeping with Charley Stoney, CEO of EACA. “It’s vital that the trade tackles these expectations and work with advertisers to assist them flex remuneration fashions that pay for this expanded remit, included expertise funding.”

Stoney added that the report helps EACA’s opinion that businesses want to maneuver away from time-based fee buildings towards an agile mannequin that works with a mix of human and synthetic intelligence providers.

Advertisers at present function in more and more complicated ecosystems. The info reveals they work with a median of 4.7 completely different company sorts. Whereas businesses rating nicely on creativity and fame, they underdeliver on proactivity, enterprise immersion, and forward-looking strategic steerage.

A major variety of purchasers are merely glad – 45% – or content material with their businesses. Solely 26% report being very glad. This hole reveals a possibility to shift extra CMOs into the best satisfaction class.

The substitute intelligence infrastructure race has accelerated throughout the promoting trade. Multiple platforms deployed agentic AI systems able to autonomous marketing campaign execution throughout early 2026. Yahoo DSP built-in agentic capabilities instantly into its demand-side platform on January 6, creating methods the place AI brokers repeatedly monitor campaigns, diagnose efficiency points, and execute corrective actions autonomously.

PubMatic launched AgenticOS with reside campaigns working, working with unbiased company Butler/Until and Geloso Beverage Group’s Clubtails model throughout December 2025 to execute early agentic campaigns. The deployment used natural-language enter to information autonomous marketing campaign suggestions, execution, and real-time optimization inside predefined parameters.

The EACA report identifies six areas the place businesses should concurrently ship to make sure the transition from merely glad purchasers to very glad ones takes place.

Businesses should turn into AI-native, integrating automation, prediction, and information intelligence into each layer of labor. AI is the primary functionality purchasers count on from businesses sooner or later. 35% price AI enhancement as excessive precedence, with one other 41% scoring it 4 out of 5.

They should be strategic architects able to shaping model trajectories and contributing to enterprise selections. Purchasers regard businesses as missing in excellence in relation to enterprise technique. They count on businesses to transcend execution and act as consultants.

Businesses have to ship operational excellence – persistently, reliably, and with disciplined governance. 32% of CMOs rank “delivering on time and in high quality” as their high choice issue. One other 39% rank it as their quantity two precedence when selecting an company crew.

They should be creatively transformative, mixing human creativeness with technology-driven codecs. 50% of respondents see businesses as creators and 21% as explorers.

They need to be embedded collaborators, functioning as extensions of the shopper crew. The perfect account crew is predicted to be proactive and know the model and market deeply. Many consumers really feel that businesses might be extra immersed of their companies.

They require cultural intelligence – in a position to decode audiences, markets, and societal indicators. Breakthrough work primarily based on real insights is likely one of the high three outputs purchasers need. 31% rank it primary, 33% quantity two, and 36% quantity three.

IAB Tech Lab unveiled an agentic roadmap on January 6, extending OpenRTB and current requirements with trendy protocols to scale AI brokers with out rebuilding digital promoting. Anthony Katsur, chief govt officer at IAB Tech Lab, acknowledged the group will make a major engineering funding targeted solely on synthetic intelligence growth.

The aggressive panorama for holding firms has intensified considerably. Mark Read stepped down as WPP chief executive on June 9, 2025, after seven years. The announcement got here as WPP struggled to reclaim its place because the world’s largest promoting company by income after being overtaken by Publicis throughout Learn’s ultimate 12 months in cost.

Omnicom agreed to acquire Interpublic Group in an all-stock transaction valued at $13.3 billion, introduced on December 9, 2024. The mixed group employs over 100,000 practitioners throughout media, precision advertising and marketing, buyer relationship administration, information analytics, digital commerce, promoting, healthcare, public relations, and branding providers.

WPP announced a 7,000-person workforce reduction on August 7, 2025, as monetary pressures mounted. The corporate maintained its full-year 2025 steerage for like-for-like income much less pass-through prices decline of 3-5%.

The trade consolidation comes as expertise platforms allow direct promoting capabilities, decreasing reliance on conventional company fashions. Kantar identified ten marketing trends that may form model technique and promoting investments throughout 2026. The developments span AI-powered buying brokers, retail media growth, creator effectiveness measurement, and artificial information implementation.

In line with Kantar, 24% of AI customers already make use of AI purchasing assistants, signaling widespread adoption of delegated buy help. The shift strikes advertising and marketing focus from capturing human consideration to predisposing autonomous brokers that execute transactions.

The EACA report arrives because the promoting expertise sector positive aspects new frameworks designed to allow synthetic intelligence brokers to work together with a number of platforms. Ad Context Protocol launched on October 15, 2025, offering a unified interface for AI brokers to find stock, evaluate pricing, and activate campaigns throughout completely different promoting platforms with out requiring customized integration work for every system.

LiveRamp introduced agentic orchestration capabilities on October 1, 2025, enabling autonomous AI brokers to entry identification decision, segmentation, activation, measurement, clear rooms, and accomplice networks by ruled APIs. In line with Matt Karasick, head of product at LiveRamp, “AI brokers are solely as good as the information they will entry.”

The technological transformation extends past particular person platforms. Amazon launched Ads Agent on November 12, 2025, a synthetic intelligence agent that automates marketing campaign planning, launching, and optimization by pure language instructions. The system creates marketing campaign buildings from uploaded media plans, recommends concentrating on segments by analyzing 1000’s of viewers choices, and generates SQL queries for analytics with out requiring coding experience.

McKinsey information signifies $1.1 billion in fairness funding flowed into agentic AI in 2024, with job postings associated to this expertise growing 985% from 2023 to 2024. The consulting agency’s Know-how Traits Outlook 2025 identifies agentic AI as synthetic intelligence methods able to autonomous planning and execution that characterize a shift from chatbot interactions to digital coworkers managing complicated workflows independently.

“This report decodes expectations, quantifies the efficiency gaps, and descriptions how businesses should evolve – structurally, culturally and technologically – to safe long-term partnership and market management within the coming decade,” Stoney acknowledged. “Purchasers too should think about how they work together with their businesses and whether or not they’re actually creating an setting that builds belief and permits the event of deep enterprise understanding and perception to feed by into their communications.”

The analysis methodology mixed quantitative rankings with qualitative semantic evaluation. EACA labored intently with Kantar to ship each a transparent hierarchy of CMO priorities and a deeper understanding of the emotional and cultural expectations shaping client-agency relationships.

The report reveals that the contradiction between acknowledged beliefs about company partnerships and precise conduct in continually switching businesses creates inefficiencies throughout the ecosystem. Fixed pitching the place 60% of profitable concepts by no means get applied wastes assets for each purchasers and businesses.

For businesses, the trail ahead requires simultaneous excellence throughout six dimensions whereas navigating an trade panorama being reshaped by consolidation and technological transformation. The growth of company remits means purchasers count on extra capabilities whereas timelines for supply shrink.

For purchasers, the analysis suggests they have to study whether or not their procurement and relationship administration practices really help the partnership mannequin they declare to worth. Creating environments that construct belief and permit deep enterprise understanding to develop requires dedication past what single-year contracts and frequent pitches can present.

The findings carry explicit weight because the promoting trade undergoes considered one of its most vital transformations in many years. The mixture of AI-driven automation, platform consolidation, and altering shopper expectations creates each challenges and alternatives for agency-client relationships.

Timeline

Abstract

Who: The European Affiliation of Communications Businesses (EACA), in partnership with Kantar, surveyed 141 firms throughout 22 European markets. 95% of respondents held advertising and marketing, communication, or high administration roles throughout sectors together with shopper items, banking, insurance coverage, power, expertise, and providers.

What: The CMOs’ Expectations Report reveals a basic contradiction – whereas 94% of CMOs consider businesses could be trusted companions, almost half ran a pitch inside the previous 12 months and 65% of these resulted in company adjustments. Belief (49% first alternative) and deep enterprise involvement (41%) rank forward of creativity. The report identifies six areas the place businesses should ship: AI-native capabilities, strategic structure, operational excellence, artistic transformation, embedded collaboration, and cultural intelligence. AI is the primary functionality purchasers count on, with 35% score it excessive precedence.

When: The report was launched in 2026, analyzing Effie Europe 2025 entries and surveying CMOs about present expectations. The timing coincides with main trade shifts together with agentic AI deployment throughout platforms in late 2025 and early 2026, and holding firm consolidation by the Omnicom-IPG merger.

The place: The analysis covers 22 European markets. The findings apply to agency-client relationships throughout the European promoting ecosystem, the place advertisers work with a median of 4.7 completely different company sorts. The report has implications globally as related patterns have an effect on promoting markets worldwide.

Why: The report issues as a result of it quantifies a harmful sample – fixed pitching and company switching undermines the belief and deep enterprise understanding that CMOs declare to worth most. With 60% of profitable pitch concepts by no means applied, the present mannequin wastes assets whereas stopping businesses from delivering the partnership worth purchasers say they want. As AI capabilities turn into the highest shopper precedence and company remits broaden whereas timelines shrink, understanding these expectations turns into vital for businesses to evolve structurally, culturally, and technologically.


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