Following a series of high profile international scandals media transparency has, for the first time, made it into the top three most popular subjects in the Marketing Management Book of the Year 2016.

While social media measurement and gender equality have also received considerable attention over the past 12 months, the relationship between client and agency once again tops the list, followed by posts on agency remuneration.

Now in its fourth edition, the Marketing Management Book of the Year published by strategic marketing management consultancy Trinity P3, is a collection of the top 50 most popular posts based on readership, commentary and social sharing from TrinityP3’s marketing management blog, which has more than 150,000 visitors each year.

In 2016 the 270-page book, the biggest yet, reflects the subjects that have captured and engaged the interests of marketers, procurement and agencies, across the world.

The most popular subjects on TrinityP3’s Marketing Management Blog 2016

1. Client/Agency relationship
2. Agency remuneration
3. Media transparency
4. Digital marketing
5. Marketing challenges
6. Procurement
7. Agency search and selection
8. Social media

Lydia Feely, MD of Evalu8ing, part of the TrinityP3 Group, said, “At a time of such complexity and disruption it makes good sense for marketers and advertisers to be focused on how to improve the performance of the agencies they are already working with rather than going through the time-consuming process of adding new agencies to their roster.”

Agency remuneration or compensation was the second most popular subject on Trinity P3 blog this year, with the top post being The latest trends in agency remuneration.

Darren Woolley, Global CEO of TrinityP3 said, “There is a growing dissatisfaction with the cost based remuneration models such as retainers and with the increased use of Zero Based Budgeting for marketing. More companies are looking to value based models to reward their agencies for results and not just compensating for costs.”

Media and in particular media transparency broke into the top three this year, as international scandals shone a light on the practices of agencies. One post, Strategic ways to use Media Added Value, which was first posted in 2011 has made it into the Top 50 demonstrating the hunger for information and strategies to maximise the value of the media investment today.

“Global attention is now firmly fixed on media transparency and we have seen significant increase in interest on posts about that subject,” said David Angell, General Manager and Head of Media at TrinityP3. “Beyond media transparency, most of our work with advertisers is identifying where media value is being created, lost and hidden and assisting them maximise their media value and performance.”