It’s every agency’s worst nightmare.

You and your team are cranking along delivering solid results for a client when you hear rumors the CMO is about to step down.

A few months later, someone new is in charge and you find yourself in the midst of an agency review.

It’s a situation that rarely works well for the incumbent agency.

And with the average CMO tenure at only 18 months, it’s a situation agencies face often.

When I attended the 2013 Agency Growth Accelerator Summit earlier this year, a panel of CMOs and brand managers discussed how they select a new public relations or advertising agency.

Barbara Van Someren, CMO of Beltone, said she prefers to work with people she already knows and trusts.

It makes sense. CMOs have been brought in to accomplish something, and they need to do it fast. Someone on the client side remarked, “We can’t afford the standard warm-up period that comes with getting to know a new agency.” (more…)