The dark side of the media agency industry: value destruction and co-destruction in a B2B context

ABSTRACT

Given the growing interest in value destruction and co-destruction research, this study explores media agency-client relationships, identifying their industry-specific value-damaging behaviours and business conditions. It adapts the concept of service logic value spheres to differentiate between provider and client value destruction as well as joint co-destruction spheres. Through 25 interviews with media agencies, advertisers, and media consultants, the study analyses whether one actor (provider or client) or both (joint) are responsible for value destruction. It determines value destruction/co-destruction activities occur in several contextually embedded business environments (media advertising markets). Additionally, organisational structures (marketing departments), management decisions (leadership), and relationship stages (pitch situations) are framed by actors’ industry-specific service activities (campaign planning). The authors highlight management implications and suggest strategies to improve media agency provider-client relationships.

KEYWORDS:

• B2B relationships
• media agency
• service logic
• value co-destruction
• value destruction

Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the constructive feedback of Associate Professor Dr. Tobias Schäfers from the Business School in Copenhagen (CBS) on a previous version of our paper that was discussed during the 2019 PhD Course “Advances in B2B Marketing Research”. The authors would also like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers. Their constructive suggestions contributed significantly to improving the quality of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences research fund.

Notes on contributors

Melanie Herfort

Melanie Herfort is a Strategic Sourcing Manager at a leading international media and entertainment company. She is an external doctoral student in the field of media management from the University of Bayreuth in the Faculty of Law, Business and Economics. Her current research focus is on B2B marketing (particularly advertising agency businesses) and media management research.

Reinhard E. Kunz

Dr. Reinhard E. Kunz is an Associate Professor in the Department of Media and Technology Management at the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences of the University of Cologne in Germany. He focuses on various aspects of media management research related to innovation. Primarily, he conducts research on the media and tech industries, organizational and individual behavior, as well as the management of digital innovations and transformations and their impact on customers, enterprises, and the society. His research emphases are in business model dynamics, media and technology user behavior, proactive decision making, and entertainment science. In business model dynamics, he studies, for instance, the dyadic, triadic, and network-related value (co-) creation and (co-) destruction in novel business models of media agency services in B2B markets.

Petra Düren

Dr. Petra Düren is Professor of Management of Library and Information Services at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. Her subjects range from Management of Library and Information Services, Information Controlling, Media and User Research, Personnel Management to Change Management. Her research projects include leadership aspects, change management, organisational culture, quality management, statistics and knowledge management in libraries. Prior to this, for nine years she was Head of Department at the German National Library of Science and Technology and the University Library Hannover (now: TIB - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Technik und Naturwissenschaften und Universitätsbibliothek) and a member of the library management responsible for corporate management.