In this episode of the What's Next podcast, we speak with Tina Fegent, a leading specialist and consultant in Marketing Procurement.

Marketing Procurement is the buying of goods and services that support an organisation’s Marketing investment. It covers the Marketing 4 P’s – Product; Price; Place (Distribution) and Promotion. It is a wide-ranging category covering spend areas such as advertising through to the negotiation of sponsorship contracts.

Tina gives her insight into how Marketing Procurement has grown, evolved and where it is headed.

The What's Next podcast explores big ideas and innovative thoughts on the future of Marketing and Advertising. Our guests come from varied backgrounds across the industry; the topics we seek to cover include cultivating positive company culture, consumer & industry trends, leadership and more.

** ABOUT TINA FEGENT **

Tina Fegent was one of the first to work in Marketing Procurement over 25 years ago. Tina then established many of the first Marketing Procurement teams in the UK for Cellnet (Telefonica), SB (GSK) and Orange & France Telecom. From Lucozade Sports bottles to Orange Arrows Formula One Racing, there isn't a category of marketing that she hasn't procured.

She was then the first Procurement person to work agency side at Grey Advertising and Lowe London as their Commercial Director. An experience that taught her how agencies work commercially.

In 2006 she set up Tina Fegent Consulting to offer a Marketing Procurement Consultancy service to clients. Recent clients (in the last 12 months or so) have been Amazon, SSE, PepsiCo, Halfords, Imperial Tobacco, Checkatrade, P&O Ferries and Aldi.

She works at a strategic level to help identify what is required to make marketing procurement successful in an organisation. Market knowledge and stakeholder engagement being some of her key attributes. She manages and works alongside clients and agencies to make sure the best commercial relationship is in place.

She also mentors and trains marketing procurement teams and individuals. She has chaired the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS) Specialist Knowledge Group on Marketing Purchasing since its inception in 2006. She was a key contributor to the Magic and Logic initiative and am a regular speaker globally on Marketing Procurement. And very proudly she was the first Marketing Procurement person to appear in Campaign's Annual A List of the most powerful people in the Advertising industry!

She is also the volunteer Director of Recruitment for the Conscious Advertising Network, which is trying to make sure that the industry ethics catches up with the technology of modern advertising, and brands are being asked to sign up and support the 6 manifestos that are in place to counteract topics such as fake news and ad fraud.

** TINA'S LINKS **

www.tinafegent.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/tina-fegent-fcips-2103573

https://twitter.com/tinafegent

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- [Tina] My name's Tina Fegent

and I run a marketing procurement consultancy

called originally Tina Fegent Limited.

And I've got 28 years experience in marketing procurement.

Been one of the first to do it

when I worked for a telecoms company 28 years ago

where I got into buying user guides for mobile phones.

It used to be inside books

and actually the agencies were buying it.

So I went directly to the printers, save 50%.

So I now run my own consultancy,

having worked with client and agency side,

work with clients and brands on all things

related to marketing procurement.

- [Karim] Excellent, nice to meet you, Tina.

Thank you so much for doing this.

- [Tina] Nice to meet you as well.

Really, really looking forward to this chat.

- [Karim] So just to level set,

in 2021, what is marketing procurement?

- [Tina] Good question.

Because actually in 2020, may have been a different answer.

So in 2021, marketing procurement is about management

of key marketing suppliers.

And that's quite broad, but I think what's happened

in the last year is procurement are at the top table.

I think it's always been an issue, especially for marketing,

where perhaps we haven't been as engaged

with our stakeholders, haven't been engaged

with the CFOs for six weeks.

So I think this year you are really starting to see

marketing procurement sit in as equals

with the CMOs, with the marketing suite,

with the chief digital officers, with CFOs.

And it is our job to manage the marketing agencies

and all suppliers, relationships,

production of marketing assets.

And obviously that management could be anything

from contracts, could be cost, could be price,

could be driving value, could be be looking at new ways

of sourcing, could be decoupling,

could be bringing stuff in house.

So it's anything to do with the management

of services to produce the marketing collateral.

- [Karim] Is it just a race to cut costs?

Is that sort of the main thing?

It sounds like that's the easy answer,

but I'm sure there's more to it.

- [Tina] At the end of the day, you can't get away

from the fact is any procurement person, be it marketing

or being it buying cardboard or raw materials,

is about managing the price that you pay for something.

It's making sure you get the best value.

And that's probably the difference is we

use the word best value in marketing.

My premise has always been to get the most

from the marketing budget, be it to utilize Trade Credits,

to get extra advertising spent on a wraparound

on the newspaper, for example.

So it's sort of, yes and no.

You are managing the commercial elements.

You are looking at agency rate costs,

the cost of art work for example.

But in marketing, you want to make sure

you've got the best suppliers in place,

delivering the best work for the best value.

And it's obviously how you define best value.

Because you could work for an organization,

perhaps two (mumbling) big companies have merged

and they have got to do the cost savings to the city.

So it's the financial market.

So they have got a target of X billion dollars, for example.

And I think, you will be focused on price

as one element, but one hopes there's a marketing spirit

about driving value.

"Value beyond savings" is a phrase that many people use.

So why should you want to concentrate

on the commercial element?

It's about making sure you get the best work out there

that drives the best for your marketing budget.

- [Karim] So you've been doing this for many years, Tina.

Recently, I think a few years ago

you were recognized by your peers

in the advertising industry on the annual A list.

From my understanding, you were the first person

specializing in marketing procurement to be honored as such.

So my question to you is,

has it taken really this long for the industry

to celebrate the value that somebody who specializes

in marketing procurement brings to the table?

- [Tina] That's just such a good question.

Cause I think the answer is actually unfortunately yes.

And obviously there's lots of other good people

besides myself around.

I think the industry for a long time has been very negative

about the role of marketing procurement.

And that it in some point, because,

in relation to your last question, there have been

many procurement people that have just focused on price.

It's about getting the agency down to the lowest cost.

But perhaps may not be experienced in the category.

Perhaps they were buying raw materials the day

before the week before and apply those principles.

So yes, unfortunately there has been a lot

of negativity about marketing procurement.

But I think we've listened to that feedback as an industry.

And I think marketing procurement clients I work with

and colleagues have invest in training,

attend conferences, and have really listened

to the fact they need to be specialists.

And I think that is a difference.

The best ones are the people that have

done marketing procurement for years and years and years.

And actually, we've seen marketeers join.

I've got a couple of clients who are ex-marketeers.

They've come to the dark side, as we said,

and have joined us in procurement.

And that actually ...

Is it easier to train a marketing person in procurement

or is it easier to train of procurement person in marketing?

So it's really interesting.

So it has, but I think there's been a lot more positivity

in the last few years.

And that the Campaign award is great to to be recognized,

to be in there and be called a good egg.

But I think we've helped.

We've invested in the time to educate ourselves.

And I think agencies are much more accepting

of the role of procurement done the right way.

- [Karim] Interesting.

Obviously over the past number of years

the onset of digital tools

and digital technologies has changed the marketing

and advertising industry, full circle.

I'm curious how digitalization has impacted

marketing procurement.

- [Tina] It's really interesting

because I've just written an agenda

for someone this morning about digital media marketing

and actually who has responsibility for it.

And that's probably been the biggest shift.

I worked for a couple of retailers, for example,

consultancy projects.

And actually you've got traditional marketing buyers.

So okay, you want an agency to build a website?

You want an agency to do this

And then you've got e-commerce platforms

and stuff like that.

Well, actually that's IT procurement.

So I think what we've seen

in digital marketing procurement is those hybrid roles.

You've got marketing buyers and you've got IT buyers.

And really a lot of organizations still have them

as separate functions.

But what we are starting to see very slow is

these hybrid roles coming together.

Because you do need those specialisms,

but they can be quite different skillsets

and different knowledge.

So, you've got marketing and you've got IT skills.

I think we've been quite slow

in supporting digital procurement if I have to say.

Because you've got that structure,

that traditional structure,

and I'd make a call to say, where are these hybrid roles?

I think in terms of digital procurement,

in terms of how we use stuff, we've been quite slow.

I think procurement per se has been quite slow

in adopting digital technology.

And I'm seeing more of it.

The last six months, there's more webinars and conferences

and podcasts about digital procurement,

about using bots to do the mundane stuff

like new supplier forms,

on boarding, purchase orders.

And also using market intelligence

to understand the marketplace

so you can make informed best decisions.

So procurement per se has been quite slow

in adopting digital technology.

So I think we will start to see that go forward.

And I think we'll start to see more hybrid roles

in terms of digital buyers who understand the digital market

cause it's different and it is a different skillset.

And you'll start to see more digital tools being used

in the procurement activities.

- [Karim] I'm wondering if you can drill down

a little bit deeper.

You talked about marketing intelligence

and then utilizing that.

Can you help unpack that for us?

- [Tina] Yeah.

It's when you get given a project or a new category.

So, "Can you help us buy X?"

Where do you start?

So we call them category plan.

So it's actually putting together a document to say,

"Right, I've analyzed the marketplace.

These are the key suppliers.

These are the key cost drivers.

This is share price.

This is the analysis

about the marketplace and the key players in it."

And obviously at the moment,

there's so many different sources out there,

from social media to Companies House

to Wall Street Journal.

So, what you're starting to see

from a digital market analysis point of view

is all that coming together.

And actually being able to, at the press of a button,

know about the supplier, know about the marketplace,

local, European, global level.

You need to have that perspective because with technology

the world is a smaller place.

We're all using Zoom and Teams.

And indeed I'm doing a couple

of consulting projects in the States, myself, all over zoom.

Be great to be there,

but actually it has facilitated the world being

a smaller place, which is fantastic.

But I think that we do need to have that information.

That's the one thing about marketing procurement.

You need to have the data.

You need to know the market place

because your clients know it.

And I think from a procurement point of view,

it is so key to understand what you're buying.

And it's such a broad category, marketing procurement.

There's 17 different categories from digital

media advertising, market research print, for example.

And if you're managing all of those categories,

you'd need data.

What are the trends?

If we're buying print,

what's the price of paper?

What's happening in Finland when they're growing the trees.

So what I'm starting to see hopefully is the use

of those tools, sustainability,

diversity, and inclusion.

Those things crop up more and more in tender documents.

And I've seen there's third parties that are providing

that information supply chain.

Make sure there's no modern slavery happening, for example.

So really great, at the moment

there's thousands of different data sources.

And obviously ideally, I'm not saying it's all be there

at the press of one button, but ideally that's what

digital market intelligence should be bringing.

That all that information is together in one place.

So you can make the right decisions

about the right suppliers and keep tabs on them.

Because it might be right if you appointed

supplier agency X, but in six months' time

something might have happened.

They file for chapter whatever eleven.

You need to know that and that's your job.

And that's why procurement has risen to the top table

as a result of last year in the pandemic.

Because CFOs went and said, "Right, who are our suppliers?

Who are the key suppliers?

Where are the contracts?

What's the pricing and what can we do?

So having market intelligence is key

to success in a lot of procurement categories.

- [Karim] That's really fascinating.

We've all probably heard or read stories

about clients putting out RFPs and hearing some

of the backstory on this race to the lowest fees.

When you take a look at it

from a marketing procurement lens though,

it seems to me that it's more than that.

And that really marketing procurement is more

of an art than it is about just looking at the numbers.

You talked about how are

certain suppliers approaching diversity

and inclusion as one aspect.

That's not something you can necessarily measure,

whether it's on a CPM basis

or a cost per point basis.

So I'm curious what sort of advice would you give

to organizations that are looking to start looking

at things from a procurement lens rather than a

just a purely cost lens?

- [Tina] I think it's a hard question because

you really have to understand procurement

and, as you said, the art of it.

So, and I think the trouble

about the negativity and the bad press is

that people haven't invested the time to do that.

So it is about understanding how they think.

There was a study done in the UK 15, 16 years ago,

by three trade bodies, the procurement trade body,

the agency trade body, and the client trade body,

called "Magic and Logic."

And that probably sums it up because what it said is

that clients and agency suppliers love the magic,

the fun bit, the ad, the tweet, the TikTok,

the room on Clubhouse.

But actually, if you look at the logic in terms

of managing time, managing costs,

making sure you've got the contractual obligation plans.

Have you got COVID procedures in basic production?

That's the logic and procurement love that.

But actually it's about getting

that balance of magic and logic.

And I think that's what people need to do is

get that balance because actually we all work too often

because we love it.

We've all missed the social element in the last 12 months,

going to concerts, events, meeting people,

gossiping and over lunch.

We've all missed those.

But it is a balance.

It is getting that balance of magic and logic.

And you can get it when you have all three parties,

the client, the agency, and suppliers and procurement,

all work into the same ultimate aim.

So I think my biggest advice is two things, is respect

and understanding and just talk to them.

Because other procurement person's

got an objective to save costs.

It's been all over the press.

The two companies have merged and they saved $500 million.

Well talk to them about it.

If it is about cost savings,

okay what can you do together?

If you do this, what if you better

your ways of working, et cetera?

The worst thing is when people have been sneaky

and hiding their objective.

So I think respect people's roles

and I think educate and talk about the challenges

and where they want to be and work as a partner.

It's an overused phrase, partner,

but I think we've seen it in the last 12 months where

procurement and suppliers have really pulled together.

Especially suppliers, especially in the media world

for example, where budgets have been cut

and the agencies have really stood shoulder to shoulder

with their clients through thick and thin.

And hopefully the light is at the end of the tunnel.

Time to start spending again.

And we'll get back to the areas that we loved,

doing, working in marketing.

- [Karim] This has been really fascinating to me.

There are obviously going to be people

that are going to want to learn more

about the space of marketing procurement.

Where should they go to learn more

about both of you and the work that you do?

- [Tina] Thank you very much.

We've got a website, which is just my name.

So www.TinaFegent.com.

Never split it in half.

People say Fegant but actually it's Fegent.

So TinaFegent.com.

I am on LinkedIn, Twitter occasionally,

but also my new thing is Clubhouse.

And I do have a room four o'clock UK time, every Tuesday

with a colleague in the States.

So if you get into Clubhouse, come join us, come onstage,

and learn about marketing procurement in the Clubhouse.

But yeah my website

is the best way to find some information.

Thank you for asking.

- [Karim] Tina. Thank you so much for joining me.

- [Tina] Thank you.

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