Overheard at DMBS: The problem with scope creep — and how to get over it
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In the Town Hall sessions at the Digiday Media Buying Summit, which wrapped on Oct. 17 in Palm Springs, California, media agency folk decried the continuing challenge of scope creep — when clients ask for work to be done on their behalf that falls outside the scope of work initially agreed upon.
But they also suggested solutions to mitigating scope creep as they shared their thoughts on the issue under the condition of anonymity — all the Town Halls at Digiday summits are held under Chatham House rules, which allow participants to speak freely without being identified. Increasing data needs, the desire to in-house and other issues also came up in the conversation.
The following edited comments highlight how challenging the issue is for media agencies struggling to remain relevant, and the opportunities scope creep presents.
Challenges
“In general, it’s how to do more with less. Clients want to pay for less and get the same amount of service, or they’re looking for agencies to invest in innovation and capabilities before they’re willing to pay. So, just how to be more efficient as an agency in process and people and general margin.”
“Getting beyond just generic goals with the KPI process. That’s a frustration I have. It’s a lot of the same generic goals. When you try to give it more insights — I want to get more goals for you that are more tangible. But a lot of [clients] don’t want to push to something new because they’re afraid of it. Or they want to do new things, but they don’t want to pay for it. They want you to integrate more and more vendors, but keep the CPMs the same. So it’s a struggle all the time with trying to innovate but keep costs down.”
“For new clients and retained clients, we have struggled to update our scope with the expected services. We’ve had a client since 2018 and we’re doing so much more for them than we were in those years, but our contract looks very similar. So there’s conflicting forces in some cases where the agency has the means or desire to be more at the business level, but isn’t necessarily compensated in a way that their leadership’s allowing them to dig into that level.”
Opportunities
“I recommended to a client the other day that they explore a brand or a conversion lift study to look at full funnel versus just performance marketing. But I made it very clear to them we’re not scoped for that work for the year we’re planning. So this is something to just kind of plant the seed and have them think about it for maybe 2026. Just so they don’t go, ‘Oh yeah, that’s a great idea, you guys should go ahead and put that together.’”
“So this is clearly an unpopular opinion, but I don’t think there’s any such thing as scope creep. I think there’s only opportunity. So it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. If you bring in the right people to present the opportunity, and then showcase or have a transparent discussion on cost later, they will be impressed and want to move forward — versus talking about scope creep, scope creep, scope creep. Which I feel oftentimes annoys clients a little bit.”
“It is an opportunity — the client is asking for help! And we’ve been fighting commoditization for a decade-plus. We’re trying to not be transactional partners that we can be eliminated by better tech, direct, or in-housing. So a client is asking you for strategy help to drive their business forward. That is a huge opportunity to come in and shift your scope. … I would use it as an opportunity to change the conversation. We want to be consultative strategists, not media monkeys all the time. It’s a good thing if they’re saying, ‘I have a business problem.’ Good, meet them where their problems are. Drive the business outcomes. Be a sticky partner. Add consultative scope, add more strategy, stand up an in-house team for them.”
“One of the things that we’ll do prior to going into scope negotiations is normalizing a look back at the year, or a look back at a project. Because there’s always the way that you write the scope, and there’s ultimately the work that went into it, and having a discussion around, ‘This was the project, and actually, when we got into it, we needed to replan. You wanted us to work with your internal analytics team, and it actually ended up looking like this.’ And then when you bring up increased scope, they remember the experience of going through that with you.”
“If you’re getting invited into other areas of scope of the business, it’s less about scope creep, and more about, we actually have the capabilities to deliver this. We’re going to bring our best expert here, and in six weeks, or whatever the time constraint is, we can have the discussion on cost. Upfront, you let them know it’ll be whatever the range is to add that to scope. And so if you have that early and transparent, you show that you’re leaning in with value add. You’ve gotta be strategic about when you do that, but that’s when you can actually increase your scope.”
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