Media is still the largest line on most marketing budgets, yet in many organisations the people who control the commercial architecture of that spend are not the CMOs. They are marketing procurement leaders.
In this #MediaSnack Live episode, we unpack how that role has changed and why it matters ahead of Media Palooza 2027.
For CMOs, Procurement Directors, and Global Heads of Media, the message is clear: if you treat procurement as a tactical cost function, you will leave growth on the table. If you treat it as a strategic partner, you can design agency models, contracts, and incentives that genuinely protect and extend your competitive advantage in media.
Watch the episode replay below Or search for the MediaSnack podcast to listen (~30 mins)
Modern marketing procurement is the commercial architect of media, not just the negotiator of lower fees. In Media Palooza 2027, the smartest teams start with the business problem, design operating models around value, and use agencies as systems to deliver growth, not simply cheaper impressions.
In the episode, we describe how "procurement has moved from being the unpopular gatekeeper on price to the permanent conductor of every serious media pitch".
Ten years ago, the brief to procurement was simple: secure cheaper pricing and come back with a big savings number to celebrate internally. Today, that narrow mandate simply does not fit the reality of modern media.
One global client recently told ID Comms that only around 20% of their media investment still runs through traditional linear channels that can be squeezed on rate. The rest sits in biddable, retail, and platform ecosystems where blunt price pressure achieves very little. That aligns with wider industry trends.
If media is a system rather than a commodity, then procurement’s real value is in designing the system: how agencies are incentivized, how contracts protect data and AI assets, how risk and reward are shared, and how performance is measured. The best marketing procurement leaders are already behaving like this, often understanding the media business model more deeply than the marketers they support.
The episode makes a simple observation: procurement has made the biggest capability leap of any discipline involved in pitches. Marketers and media leaders have become more sophisticated, but procurement has moved from pure cost controllers to strategic co-architects of operating models.
Historically, success was measured in annual savings and tough contracts. That narrow lens has been widely challenged. Commentators across the industry have argued that chasing short term fee cuts often produces long term waste: rework, weaker talent, and underpowered media programs. Recent analysis on marketing procurement’s evolution frames the shift neatly: the function is moving from price taker to value architect (SRM Today).
In practice, David sees four behaviors that distinguish modern, value-focused procurement in pitches:
External observers are seeing similar patterns. Exchange4Media reports that in large-scale pitches procurement and specialist consultants are now central to designing evaluation criteria, benchmarking fees, and building governance frameworks around conflicts of interest, not just line-item savings (exchange4media).
The upshot for CMOs is that your procurement colleagues are no longer simply the people who will say ‘no’ to your favorite agency. They are the ones most likely to ensure that the commercial model, incentives, and contracts actually support your strategic ambitions in media.
We frame Media Palooza 2027 as a coming stress test for every shiny new agency operating model. A wave of global pitches is building. Many advertisers have delayed renegotiating terms or rethinking scopes, and now everything is arriving at once.
On the agency side, holding companies are rebranding themselves as operating companies. That sounds cosmetic, but it has real implications. If an agency group is an operating system rather than a loose collection of businesses, then someone on the client side needs to sit in the cockpit of that system. In the ID Comms view, that someone is marketing procurement.
Agencies are understandably nervous. Their AI capabilities, retail media offers, and integrated teams are about to be compared, prodded, and benchmarked at scale. At the same time, scrutiny of working media versus non-working costs is intensifying. The ANA’s 2025 Programmatic Transparency Benchmark found that working media share in programmatic rose to 47.1 percent, recovering an estimated 13.6 billion dollars in media value across the industry (Human Digital summarizing ANA data). Those numbers focus executive attention.
In this environment, we argue that agencies should treat procurement as a primary client, not an inconvenient gatekeeper. The days when the marketing team arrived at a pitch in one car and procurement in another, with conflicting agendas, are fading. In well-run organizations, marketing and procurement now enter as one aligned client.
For advertisers, the winning move is to give procurement the mandate and confidence to lead. They can interrogate why you are pitching at all, whether a structured renegotiation would deliver 80 percent of the value at 20 percent of the cost, and how AI, tokens, and new remuneration models will reshape your media system. Done well, this does not make marketers less powerful. It frees them to be the rock stars while procurement plays the dependable road crew that makes the show work.
Before you dive into the detail and the transcript, a quick invitation: if you recognize that your own operating model, contracts, or procurement relationships are not yet ready for Media Palooza 2027, get in touch with ID Comms to confidentially discuss your gameplan and your options to protect your competitive advantage in media.
We draw on more than a decade of running pitches to describe a structural shift. In every review they now support, procurement is present, engaged, and often holding the reins of the process from beginning to end.
In earlier years, procurement’s job was framed narrowly: secure cheaper pricing, tighten contracts, and report back on the savings delivered. Now, in many of the global organizations ID Comms works with, marketing procurement leaders are:
This is a big deal. Media agencies are becoming systems businesses, combining platforms, data, AI, and human talent into an operating layer for marketing. Someone has to manage that layer with a cool head and a clear view of risk and reward. Increasingly, that someone is procurement.
The implications run in three directions: for marketers, for procurement, and for agencies.
For marketers, the implication is that you no longer need to carry the full burden of commercial governance alone. Your job is to set the growth agenda, bring the ambition, and stay close to the talent and culture that make the work great. You still care about the numbers, but you do not need to obsess over every clause.
For procurement, the implication is increased responsibility and visibility. You are not just measuring savings; you are designing the commercial architecture of modern media organizations. When agencies describe themselves as operating companies, you are the client-side operators who decide how that operating system serves your business.
For agencies, the implication is that resisting procurement is self-defeating. The most effective CEOs will invite marketing procurement leaders into the top table, share transparently how their models work, and co-design incentives that reward real performance. In an era of heightened scrutiny, it is better to have a commercially sophisticated ally inside the client than a suspicious one at the gate.
We close the episode with pragmatic coaching for CMOs and procurement leaders who want to get Media Palooza 2027 right:
Above all, marketers should see procurement as a coach alongside them, not a referee against them. When marketing and procurement walk into an agency lobby as one team with a shared agenda, they send a powerful signal. They are serious about value, serious about partnership, and serious about using media as a lever for growth.
Q1: Why is marketing procurement so central to Media Palooza 2027?
Because procurement now designs the commercial architecture of media relationships, from contracts and KPIs to remuneration and AI clauses, they are best placed to stress test new agency operating models.
Q2: Has procurement really moved beyond pure cost cutting?
Yes. The most advanced teams are tasked with value creation, not just savings, and look at how media and agency models support business growth rather than only short term rate reductions.
Q3: What should CMOs expect from great procurement partners?
Expect them to challenge whether a pitch is necessary, frame the brief around growth, interrogate measurement and risk, and ensure that incentives motivate agencies to care about your results.
Q4: How should agencies approach marketing procurement today?
Treat procurement as a primary client. Be transparent about your commercial model, invite joint design of remuneration, and show how you will protect the advertiser’s interests while still making a fair profit.
Q5: Where does AI fit into procurement’s agenda?
AI changes how work is done, priced, and owned. Procurement must understand agency AI capabilities, data usage, and token or licensing models, then build those into contracts and remuneration so value and risk are shared fairly.
Q6: What is the risk of treating procurement as a ‘roadblock’?
If you marginalise procurement, you end up with misaligned incentives, fragile contracts, and internal resistance when issues arise. Bringing them into the centre creates alignment across marketing, finance, and legal.
Q7: How can advertisers avoid unnecessary pitches?
By having procurement lead a rigorous pre-pitch diagnosis: clarifying the problem, assessing whether scope or behaviours can be fixed through renegotiation, and only pitching when a new model or partner is genuinely required.
Q8: What does ‘protecting talent’ mean in this context?
It means paying fairly for high calibre agency teams, creating stability in scopes and ways of working, and ensuring that aggressive fee cuts do not undermine the people who drive performance on your business.
Q9: How does procurement support integrated agency models?
Integrated models are commercially complex. Procurement’s role is to align KPIs, avoid conflicting incentives across disciplines, and design governance that rewards collaboration rather than siloed optimisation.
Q10: How can we get help designing our next media pitch or renegotiation?
ID Comms works with global advertisers to design evidence-based operating models, pitch processes, and renegotiations. Get in touch to confidentially discuss your gameplan and options to protect your competitive advantage in media.
Hello, I’m Tom Denford in New York and I’m David Indo from London. Welcome to MediaSnack Live. It’s our weekly roundup of the important news, stories, and trends you need to know about the global media marketing industry.
In every show we ask: what is going on, what are the implications for advertisers, and what should marketers be thinking about next? Thanks for joining us. Let’s get into this week’s show.
We’re talking about marketing procurement and their role, particularly in agency pitches, because we’re doing this whole season about Media Palooza. If you’ve been following along, we’re talking about Media Palooza 2027, which is what everybody in the agency world is talking about: a wave of pitches that is starting to build.
This is going to be a big reckoning and a great test for all the new agency operating models. A lot of advertisers have hesitated or been slow to renegotiate terms with their agency partners, and it is all coming to a big crescendo. That’s Media Palooza.
Procurement’s role can be terrifying to agencies because they wield significant leverage and influence in the marketplace. However, our observation is that media procurement’s role has changed. Our hypothesis is that, as an industry, we have misunderstood and undervalued the role that marketing procurement plays.
Historically, procurement focused mainly on cost reduction, and agencies were pushed to find hidden margin. That is their story. In our experience, more modern marketing procurement focuses less on that commodity price approach.
We love working with marketing procurement teams that are seen as part of the strategic operating design and that are now getting much more involved in maximizing agency AI capabilities, understanding the commercial implications of those capabilities, and driving value creation.
We have been running pitches at ID Comms for more than a decade. Looking back at the evolution of the disciplines within the brand organizations we work with, marketers and media leaders have refined their capabilities and become more sophisticated. But the biggest leap in skill set, understanding, and strategic thinking has come from procurement.
We talk a lot about the stakeholders involved in pitching and encourage marketers and media people to be part of the process all the way through. The one undisputed truth is that procurement are always there. In every pitch we are involved with, procurement are holding the reins of the process.
Five or ten years ago, procurement’s role was to secure cheaper pricing, ensure that the commercial side of the business was as tight and stringent as possible, and that contracts secured the best terms so they could go back and show the big savings number they had delivered.
Procurement’s role now is far more nuanced. On a recent call with a client’s procurement leaders, they told us that only around 20 percent of their global media investment is in linear channels. The remaining 80 percent cannot simply be squeezed for value in the traditional sense.
That makes procurement’s role far more critical and more strategic. Procurement teams are asking different questions. It is no longer just: how cheap can we get this media, or how much can we reduce fees? Now it is: why are we pitching, what role do we want our agency to play, what problem are we trying to solve, and should we even be pitching in the first place? Could we achieve the same outcome through a renegotiation that saves time and money for the company?
They are asking more nuanced, strategic, business-led questions and leading those discussions internally with the support and alignment of marketing.
The economics have also become more nuanced. It is not just about cheaper pricing or reduced fees. It is about the role AI will play in the operating system, about tokens, about more modern remuneration structures, and about making sure that in an era of massive technology change and confusion, brands have contracts that are more sophisticated and nuanced than ever, to protect advertiser interests.
Thankfully, procurement functions in most organizations we work with have leaned into the complexities of media and now look at media through a far more strategic lens. They will always be the drum masters of a pitch process. One procurement leader once joked that procurement are the roadies and marketers are the rock stars. That does not diminish procurement; it recognises that they are always there, and the really good ones have a disproportionate impact on the productivity and value generated from a media pitch.
Marketing procurement has often been misunderstood and under appreciated. We have been lucky over the past decade to see great procurement leaders step into marketing, become experts in media, and sometimes understand the media business model and its risks better than the marketer.
Marketers often see media as a channel of distribution, a way of connecting their brand to customers. It can feel transactional. They are also thinking about product, pricing, brand reputation, creative work, and celebrity endorsers. Procurement are there to keep an eye on the media pot so it does not boil over. Media may not be the sexiest part of the mix, but it is critical.
We have seen more marketing organizations putting media thinking, data thinking, and now automation at the centre of their operating model. Procurement have been big architects and champions of that shift, exploring what is possible and making it real.
There is still a question about why procurement are sometimes not fully at the table. In most organisations we work with, when it comes to pitching, procurement are absolutely at the table, if not setting the agenda, then ensuring that marketers, finance, and legal are aligned behind a process designed to create value.
Procurement’s objectives and KPIs have become higher level and more aligned with business KPIs. When you are aligned to business outcomes rather than a simple cost metric, you belong at the top table. You may not be in every agency discussion all the time, but in every review we see, procurement sit at that top table.
There are implications here. Agency CEOs sometimes worry about procurement, remembering a time when marketers and procurement would arrive at pitches as two separate clients with divergent interests. Marketers were focused on strategy and growth; procurement were focused on price.
Now we see much better alignment between marketing and procurement. When they walk into an agency, they are more likely to be a single, aligned client. Marketing and procurement need to recognise that and be confident that they are both critical stakeholders in the success of the relationship.
Agencies should understand that in many ways they have two clients: marketing and procurement. If those clients are aligned, life is easier. If they are not, the agency will feel the tension.
There are also implications for how agencies position themselves. When holding companies say they are operating companies rather than holding companies, they are effectively saying they are systems. Clients need someone who understands how to run that system.
With respect, you do not want to put brand marketers alone in the cockpit, because they will rightly be drawn to creative and brand challenges. You want dependable commercial partners who understand the system, the commercial model, and the scope requirements. That is where procurement come in.
Agencies are increasingly about contracts, incentives, commercial models, objectives, and the eradication of waste, not only about culture and creative flair. Media agencies are procurement operations as much as marketing operations. They are tools for procurement to procure media, audiences, impressions, and impact.
The idea that procurement is an inferior stakeholder in managing a media agency is simply not true. Procurement are often the primary client, whether people like it or not.
So what should procurement and marketers do looking ahead to 2029 and beyond? David Indo offers four pieces of advice for smart procurement leaders in modern pitches:
First, start with the business problem, not the RFP. Understand the role you want media to play in growth and design the pitch or renegotiation around that, not around a pricing exercise.
Second, separate price from value. Price will always be important, but the bigger equation is value. Ask how you can encourage agencies to deliver disproportionate value from your media investment.
Third, design remuneration models for the future. Legacy models often lock behaviour and slow innovation. When you review remuneration, make sure it is fair and equitable, but also progressive. Ask agencies what models would generate their best work.
Fourth, protect the talent. In an era of technology, data, and automation, talent is still a competitive advantage. Protect the people on your business and make talent a core component of any agency offer.
On talent specifically, marketers want people who care, who are smart and curious, who understand the business, and who can work as an extension of the team to deliver against KPIs and growth objectives. That has not changed since the days when David was a marketer at Nike.
Procurement’s role is to make sure those people care about your business on Monday morning. That means creating incentives so that agency leaders wake up thinking about your brand. You inspire them intellectually and creatively, but you also align their commercial incentives with your success.
Too often, contracts are written with no real incentive for agencies to go above and beyond, even as brands expect them to do so. Procurement is uniquely well placed to fix that, designing contracts and remuneration that directly reward growth.
Integrated models add another layer of complexity. As agencies integrate capabilities and holding companies merge operations, procurement needs to align KPIs, avoid conflicting incentives across disciplines, and create governance frameworks that reward collaboration.
It is harder work, but businesses are already doing it well. The direction of travel is clear: procurement-led commercial architecture is central to how modern media organizations will prove impact and sustain growth.
The episode closes as a kind of sonnet to marketing procurement. Tom Denford and David Indo thank procurement leaders for the progress they have made and encourage them to be bold as Media Palooza approaches. You are in charge of this. Help build the operating models.
And if you want support designing those operating models, pitches, or renegotiations, ID Comms is here to help you get good at media.