#85: Go Fish Digital's David Dweck on pricing, private equity and the future of agency growth

Well, I want to push back on this idea that nobody goes into this business from a procurement perspective.

Sure.

Big to differ.

I think there are some who have, but I also want to press and probe on this idea a little bit.

So one thing I learned when I showed up in agency land in 2003, knowing nothing but the industry, I said, aren't we really just outsource procurement? Aren't we just procuring audiences and attention and procuring whatever the goal is that the marketer has? And aren't we just part of a supply chain? And shouldn't we be thinking about the discipline of procurement in context of how we do what we do? Push back on that.

Sure.

I was definitely talking about procurement through the lens of pricing and price compression.

But I think, yeah, there are definitely aspects of what we do, especially on the media side, that can be commoditized or thought of commodities.

We're operating relatively as middlemen or people that are better equipped in leveraging skills, experience, knowledge to... buy media at a better price.

It's arbitrage, right? Like if an agency is- But you don't

think creative, I'd argue that procurement can also be applied.

If procurement is done right, it can be applied to differentiated and high value products if it's done right.

And that's maybe the bigger issue.

Sure.

Yeah.

I think, yes, if done right and if you're working on the right sort of, solving the right sort of problems for your clients, absolutely.

But I think where things get- Different is, look, I spent a lot of time at holding companies.

I've been on the side where I've had multiple conflicts of interest thrust upon me because of the commercial model the agency set up.

And on top of that, I've worked with massive clients that are inspirational brands that we all grew up eating their foods, eating their products, and the work shouldn't be...

The client should never tell you, the work's great, but please do it again for 20% less the next year and 20% less the next, but don't say it.

It'll

be bad procurement.

And again, I think too many people have been scarred by that reality.

But I want to go back to the structure you have, which is kind of, there's a lot of P roll-ups in this space, but how is that impacting your ability to invest in any given direction that you want to go? Are you...

Back to do what you did last year for 20% less.