Outcomes of advertiser–agency relationships

The form and the role of cooperation within advertising relationships is the focus of this research. The theory posits that trust, commitment and cooperation are the core of the relationship and that the agency’s performance and the advertiser’s willingness-to-paymore for the agency’s services are the outcomes. Cooperation is defined and tested as a higher-order construct with three facets: shared problem solving, information exchange and flexibility. Competing theories are presented: the shared-influence model and the sole-mediator model. The contrast between the models focuses on whether the influence of trust and commitment is: (1) entirely mediated through cooperation; (2) shared with cooperation; or (3) bypasses cooperation altogether. The results indicate that although cooperation has a strong influence on agency performance, both trust and commitment have direct and indirect (mediated through cooperation) influences on performance. This supports the shared-influence model. The results also indicate that cooperation can successfully be measured as a higher-order construct.