The marketing industry has never had a shortage of awards, rankings, case studies and agency directories. What it has lacked is a simple, recognizable place where companies and individual marketers can actually be reviewed.
Marketing Crunch is launching with a concept designed to address that gap. The new platform is positioning itself as the “Rotten Tomatoes of tech marketing,” applying the familiar idea of reviews to PR firms and individual marketers.
Instead of helping audiences decide which movie to watch, Marketing Crunch is designed to help companies better understand the people and firms they may hire to shape their reputation.
The Information Gap In Marketing
Selecting a PR or marketing partner can be surprisingly difficult. Agencies typically present their strongest work through client testimonials, successful campaigns, awards and media placements. Those materials can provide useful context, but they do not necessarily offer a standardized way to assess different providers.
Marketing Crunch is entering that space with a review-based approach.
The timing is notable because agencies remain deeply embedded in B2B marketing. Forrester’s 2026 B2B Brand and Communications Survey found that 93% of respondents use agencies in some capacity. At the same time, the share of marketers expecting their overall agency budgets to increase fell 13 percentage points between 2025 and 2026, with nearly half expecting spending to remain flat.
That combination creates a more demanding environment for marketing firms. Companies are still using outside specialists, but they are becoming more selective about where those dollars go.
Reputation Is Becoming A Business Consideration
Marketing has traditionally operated on a reputation economy. Relationships, previous clients, media connections and perceived expertise can all influence purchasing decisions.
But the growing use of AI is changing what agencies can offer and how quickly competitors can replicate certain services.
Forrester reported in June 2026 that nine in 10 U.S. marketing agencies use generative AI, while half use agentic AI for marketing execution. The research also found that agencies are increasingly using AI across creative, strategy, media and reporting workflows.
As tools become more accessible, differentiation may increasingly depend on what happens beyond the technology itself: strategic judgment, execution, relationships, creativity and the ability to produce results.
That makes reputation and third-party feedback potentially more valuable.
Borrowing A Familiar Model
The Rotten Tomatoes analogy is useful because the underlying concept is already familiar to consumers.
Rather than asking prospective customers to navigate dozens of disconnected opinions, Marketing Crunch aims to create a dedicated destination for reviews of PR firms and marketers.
Its success, however, will ultimately depend on the credibility of the information it publishes. A review platform has to establish trust with both sides of the marketplace: the companies looking for marketing partners and the professionals being reviewed.
For Marketing Crunch, that creates an opportunity to build something more than another marketing directory.
A Different Way To Evaluate The Industry
The launch comes at a time when marketing organizations are under pressure to demonstrate more tangible value. Cision’s 2026 Inside PR research found that while brand awareness remains a major PR priority, executives and agencies are placing greater emphasis on revenue and ROI. The report also found that 91% of PR professionals surveyed use generative AI in their workflows.
Marketing Crunch is entering that changing environment with a straightforward proposition: make the people behind marketing more reviewable.
If the platform can establish a trusted review ecosystem, it could add another layer to how companies research the firms and individuals competing for their marketing budgets. For an industry increasingly shaped by AI, efficiency and scrutiny, that could make reputation easier to examine, and harder to ignore.
