Part 3: Agency Scope China - Chinese market complexity and competitiveness raise client expectations

It found that agency expert knowledge of the Chinese consumer remains a key criterion in agency selection.

Agencies must also offer more value-added services, alliances, and collaborations to differentiate themselves and help clients cut through a challenging market.

Part 2 – Agency Scope China: Short term performance prevents development of deep relationships

1 day

More detractors than promoters

The level of recommendation of creative agencies to friends and colleagues has decreased since 2022 (NPS 2022: -3.8% vs. NPS 2024: -9.8%).

Even though the NPS (Net Promoter Score) has increased in the last two years, the number of detractors remains higher than promoters,
confirming that Chinese clients are hard to satisfy.

The predisposition to change IMC agencies (‘definitely’ will change or ‘probably’ will change) has increased in the last two years and it is similar to the global average (15.7% of Chinese marketers are considering changing their IMC agencies in 2024, compared to 11.6% in 2022).

Moreover, ‘only’ 60.3% (72.7% in 202) of interviewees have no intention of changing their current IMC agencies.

The level of recommendation of media agencies to friends and colleagues has remained stable since 2022 (NPS 2022: -14.5% vs. NPS 2024: -14.4%) while the level of satisfaction with the service provided by media agencies in China has decreased in the last two years (2022 ‘very satisfied or satisfied’: 62.9% vs. 2024: ‘very satisfied or satisfied’: 56.8%).

However, the predisposition to change media agencies (‘definitely’ will change or ‘probably’ will change) has also decreased in the last two years (8.5% of Chinese marketers are thinking of changing their media agency in 2024, compared to 12.7% in 2022).

Part 1: Agency Scope China: A greater value on strategy

2 days

Proving performance to justify investment

Brand Positioning / Awareness / Relevance (27%), Proving ROI / Effectiveness / Results / Metrics (24%), and Shrinking Budgets (20%) are the main challenges marketers mention they are facing.

Agencies that can address these pain points will find favour with Chinese marketers.

Helping clients stand out in a saturated market in a way that strengthens brand positioning, consideration and audience connection is key for agencies to retain and win new accounts.

Digital platforms gain ground, agencies remain crucial

Digital platforms are gaining relevance against agencies in each edition in China.

Nowadays, they are even seen as key partners in facing future challenges.

Douyin (TikTok) holds the strongest position.

However, digital platforms still can’t solve the strategic and creative challenges that brands face, and agencies maintain even stronger positions in these areas, often collaborating as consultants with marketers who work directly with the platforms.

Agency Scope China

Scopen recently finished a new wave of the Agency Scope Study in collaboration with global independent consultancy R3.

This China Marketing Trends Study follows over six months of in-depth interviews with more than 300 market leaders and senior marketing professionals.

Agency Scope China 2023/24 is the 10th edition of the study in the country. It is also conducted in 10 other markets, enabling the inclusion of global benchmarks in some key criteria.

In this edition, 323 professionals from 242 different companies were interviewed, and 837 client-agency relationships were analysed. The fieldwork took place between August and November 2023.