A-B Changes How Agencies are Paid

In a development that has rocked the ad agency world, Anheuser-Busch has abandoned its retainer-based model of paying ad agencies in favor of flat rate negotiated fees on specific projects. A-B will also be trimming down the number of agencies it works with, and will be cutting ad production costs and so-called "jump ball" projects, where agencies compete for executions on the same campaign, according to a reportthis morning by Jeremy Mullman in Ad Age. All of this is just