June 1st – hayfever and BBQ season is in full swing, and agency and client relationships are shifting. Here’s what’s happening in the insights and strategy space right now, and what it means if you’re in it.

🔁 Quick Pulse: What We’re Hearing

💬 “I want a role where I actually see the impact of my work – not just send a report off into the void.”

💬 “The agency/client relationship is becoming more transactional.”

💬 “We’re hiring, but we’re so busy we don’t have time to actually hire anyone.”

🧠 One Big Trend: The agency–client relationship is losing its depth

Across the board, insight relationships are becoming more transactional. Briefs arrive fully formed, timelines are compressed, and the expectation is delivery, not dialogue. And while efficiency has its place, something is being lost in the process – the consultative back-and-forth that tends to produce the most genuinely useful work.

For candidates, this shift is shaping what they want from their next role. People at the sharp end are increasingly wanting to see where their work lands and see its strategic implications. That’s harder to offer when the relationship with the client is transactional by design.

What’s driving it: Procurement involvement has increased and budgets are tighter. In a market where insight is still proving its commercial value, speed has become the visible metric. The race to the lowest price point is quietly eroding the space for the kind of thinking clients actually need.

🔍 Method Spotlight: Collaborative Discovery

As a counter to the transactional brief model, some agencies are reintroducing structured co-creation at the start of a project, bringing clients into the research design process rather than receiving a brief and disappearing until debrief.

Why it works: When clients co-own the research question, they’re more invested in the answer. Engagement at debrief is stronger, implementation moves faster, and the agency relationship shifts from vendor to partner. It costs more at the front, and saves considerably more at the back.

👀 Brand to Watch: Ipsos Iris

Ipsos’ behavioural science unit has been quietly repositioning itself as a strategic growth partner rather than a research supplier, embedding consultants into client teams over longer engagements rather than delivering standalone projects. It’s a deliberate move against the transactional grain, and one that’s attracting attention from clients who’ve grown frustrated with report-and-retreat agency models.

📊 Smart Stat

42% of insight professionals say they rarely or never receive feedback on how their research was used after delivery. (Source: GreenBook Industry Trends Report (GRIT), 2025)