Leegaard Media Advisory

A Closer Look

Agency Pitch Management

“The last pitch took 8 months and still felt like a compromise”.

• A well-run pitch starts with a brief that reflects a clear strategic ambition — not a wish list. It sets evaluation criteria upfront and sticks to them. It moves at pace, respects the agencies’ time and protects yours. And it ends with a decision you can defend, not one you simply survived.
• An independent pitch process takes the operational burden off your internal team, removes the politics, protects confidentiality and ensures all agencies are evaluated on the same terms — so the agency you select is the right one, not just the safest one.

“Your agency committed to results. Do you know if they’re delivering?”

• Most advertisers sign off on ambitious KPIs at appointment — many never formally revisit them. Those commitments typically cover two things: the price your agency buys media at, and the quality of what they buy. Both matter. And without an independent view, both are very hard to verify.
• A structured performance review maps contracted commitments against actual delivery — on cost, on quality and on the metrics that were agreed. It identifies where value is being lost, and gives you the commercial leverage to act on it, including fee adjustments where justified.

Media Transparency

“You trust your agency. But trust without verification is just hope.”

• Non-transparent agency trading is booming — agencies are increasingly buying media inventory at scale and reselling it to clients at an undisclosed mark-up. On paper, they’re recommending the best media plan for your business. In practice, they have a financial incentive to favour the inventory they own. That’s a conflict of interest — and it’s accelerating.
• A focused contract review delivers full transparency. It identifies what your agency is authorised to earn on your media budget, assesses whether your contract terms are market-standard, and gives you concrete recommendations on what to change — and what to demand going forward.

Media Operating Model Design

“Everyone is talking about in-housing. But is it right for your business?”

• The in-housing debate is often driven by trend rather than analysis. The “why” is rarely clear enough: is it about cost, control, speed or capability? The answer matters, because each leads to a very different model. And the assumptions are often wrong — underestimating the true cost of internal talent, overestimating the scale needed to justify it, or failing to account for what gets lost when you step back from the agency ecosystem.
• An independent operating model review cuts through the noise — challenging the assumptions, mapping your current setup, and giving senior management a clear, evidence-based recommendation on what belongs in-house and what doesn’t.

Director-Level Media Counsel

“Your agency relationship is three years old and something feels off.”

• It shows up as a nagging feeling that results have stalled, that meetings have become routine, or that the agency’s best people seem to be working on someone else’s business. Sometimes it’s something more specific — a missed commitment, a budget discrepancy, a recommendation that felt more convenient for the agency than right for you.
• Before committing to a full pitch, it’s worth knowing what’s actually going on. A short, focused diagnostic maps the relationship against its original commitments — and either gives you the confidence to reset on better terms, or the clarity to move on and decide whether it’s time to pitch.