In this article
Including your current agency in an incumbent agency review is almost always the right call, but only if the process is genuinely competitive and independently managed. A well-run incumbent review protects your credibility, gives your agency a fair hearing, and produces a defensible outcome regardless of who wins.
You are about to launch a media agency selection, and one question comes up early in almost every engagement: do you invite the agency already on your roster? It feels awkward. There is shared history, embedded knowledge, and often a personal relationship with the team. At the same time, excluding them feels arbitrary. This article sets out the considerations, the risks on both sides, and the practical rules that make an incumbent review work.
Why the incumbent agency review question matters more than it appears
The decision is not just procedural. It signals to the market how seriously you take the process. Exclude the incumbent without explanation, and challenger agencies may question whether the review is genuine. Include them without proper safeguards, and your own team may wonder whether the outcome is already decided.
There is also a commercial dimension. An incumbent who knows they are fighting for the business will almost always sharpen their offer. Buyers who run a competitive review consistently report stronger pricing and improved terms compared to a direct renegotiation. The competitive dynamic is the mechanism.
Research from the World Federation of Advertisers and independent consultancies shows that incumbents win roughly 30 to 40 percent of competitive reviews when the process is properly run. That figure alone tells you two things: the incumbent has a genuine shot, and challengers win the majority.
The case for including the incumbent
The strongest argument for inclusion is objectivity. A review that excludes the incumbent is not really a review, it is a replacement exercise. If your stated goal is to find the best agency for your business, you owe it to yourself to test that assumption against the market, including against the agency you already have.
Inclusion also benefits the incumbent. It gives them the opportunity to demonstrate growth, present new capabilities, and reset the commercial relationship on terms that reflect the current market. Agencies that have held an account for several years often perform better in a structured pitch than their clients expect, precisely because they know the business intimately.
For the rest of the process, the chemistry meeting and case round are particularly revealing when an incumbent participates. You can directly compare how they think against how challenger agencies approach the same brief. The chemistry meeting and case round often surface incumbent complacency just as clearly as they reveal challenger ambition.
The case for exclusion, and when it applies
There are situations where excluding the incumbent is the right decision. The most defensible scenario is a relationship breakdown. If trust has eroded to the point where the incumbent’s participation would compromise the integrity of the process or make shortlisting impossible to defend, exclusion is cleaner.
A second valid reason is structural conflict. If the review is partly about consolidating agencies across markets and the incumbent holds a conflict in a key market, their participation may be logistically unworkable.
A third scenario is where the decision has effectively already been made for strategic reasons: a holding company mandate, a global alignment, or a merger that makes the incumbent ineligible. In those cases, running a competitive review is misleading to all parties. It is more honest to proceed directly to appointment.
If none of these conditions apply, the default should be inclusion.
How to make incumbent participation genuinely fair
Including the incumbent creates a process design problem. They have information advantages that challenger agencies do not: your data, your team relationships, your internal priorities. Left unmanaged, that asymmetry can compromise the quality of challenger responses and undermine confidence in the outcome.
Several structural rules make the process fair in practice.
Firewall the briefing. The incumbent should receive exactly the same brief, at the same time, as every other agency on the shortlist. They should not be consulted in drafting the brief. If a pitch consultant is running the process, enforcing this discipline is part of their role.
Standardise access to data. Any data you share with challenger agencies, spend histories, audience data, performance benchmarks, should also be made available to the incumbent in the same format. Conversely, the incumbent should not have access to information that other agencies do not.
Separate evaluation from day-to-day management. The incumbent’s account team should not be involved in any part of the evaluation process. The people scoring the pitch must be clearly separated from anyone managing the existing agency relationship.
Apply the same scoring criteria. The same evaluation scorecard, weighted in the same way, should be applied to every agency in the process. Document the selection criteria before the review begins, not afterward. For a structured framework, the broader media agency selection process, step by step sets out how evaluation criteria fit into the overall timeline.
It is also worth understanding the difference between an RFI and an RFP at this stage. The incumbent may be included or excluded at different gates. The distinction between an RFI and an RFP in agency selection explains how each stage functions and who should progress through it.
What to tell the incumbent, and when
Timing and tone matter. The incumbent should be informed of the review before any public signals reach the market. A direct conversation with the senior client lead is appropriate, not an email from procurement. The message should be factual: you are conducting a scheduled review of your agency relationship, the incumbent is invited to participate, and the process will be independently managed.
Avoid framing the review as a performance assessment of the incumbent specifically. That framing is inaccurate if the real driver is a routine market check, and it creates an adversarial dynamic that serves no one.
Set a clear timeline. A well-structured media agency pitch typically runs between three and five months. From first brief to signed contract, the active process usually runs ten to sixteen weeks, with the media agency transition adding further time after appointment. The incumbent deserves the same timeline transparency as any other participant.
FAQ
Does the incumbent have an unfair advantage in a competitive review? They have a knowledge advantage, not necessarily a competitive advantage. A well-designed process neutralises the information asymmetry through equal briefing, standardised data access, and independent evaluation. Incumbents win roughly 30 to 40 percent of competitive reviews when the process is properly run, a minority, but a meaningful one.
Should the incumbent know they are competing against specific agencies? No. The identity of other agencies on the shortlist should not be shared with any participant. Each agency should pitch as if the decision is genuinely open, which it should be.
What if the incumbent threatens to resign the account during the review? This occasionally happens and should be treated as a data point about the agency’s character, not as a reason to halt the process. A well-advised incumbent understands that a competitive review is a legitimate client right. An agency that cannot engage constructively with that is providing useful information about how they would behave under future commercial pressure.
Is it possible to negotiate directly with the incumbent instead of running a review? Yes, but the commercial outcome is almost always weaker. The competitive dynamic of a full review, including the incumbent, consistently produces sharper pricing and better terms than a bilateral renegotiation. If cost and performance are material concerns, a structured review delivers more leverage.
What happens to the business relationship during the review period? Day-to-day work continues normally. The incumbent should not be asked to reduce service levels, and your team should not signal a preference either way. Managing that separation is one of the reasons many advertisers engage an independent consultant to oversee the process.
