Watch: Magna global chief on the "critical" value of agencies

Andy Zonfrillo, the global president of IPG Mediabrands’ Magna, says that agencies are more critical to clients than ever. In this video, recorded at the Campaign360 conference in Singapore, he discusses how the agency model is evolving, the relationships between marketers and finance departments and why his biggest challenge as an agency head is “articulating effectiveness”.

Zonfrillo also comments on the trend for clients taking more work, particularly on data management, in-house, seemingly a worrying development for agencies. In the ‘Business of Media’ survey recently carried out by Campaign and Kantar, we found that 74% of respondents from brands think data is best managed in-house, and a similar percentage of all those surveyed said they trusted in-house data more than data gathered from other sources.

• Read our report on Zonfrillo's panel discussion at Campaign360: "Wanted: Agency partners with backbone"

Zonfrillo comments that he has noted the in-housing trend but has also seen clients who have reversed these decisions, realising that they still need their agency partners to “get everything to work seamlessly together”.

Based in London, Zonfrillo was appointed president of Magna Global in September after a career spanning roles at Mindshare, GroupM and Omnicom Media Group, among others.

• See all our reports from Campaign360, plus photos and an exclusive Q+A with Sir Martin Sorrell.