On one hand, media owners were as keen as ever to cherry pick the positives and highlight the successes, while agencies have been more willing to give a candid view on what was a less than inspiring set of results.

MEC’s press director Rob Lynam tells the real facts; out of the top 100 actively purchased titles, 70 have lost circulation versus July to December 2009.

Andy Pearch, co-founder of MediaSense, says that while there were some good individual performances “the overall impression is of a category treading water, with fewer new entrants and a number of household names in freefall.”
The quality end of the market seems to have fared better, with Women’s Monthly and Home Interest titles putting in a good performance. However, Teen, Music and Men’s Lifestyle sectors have struggled, possibly as a result of readers favouring digital formats.

Pearch also notes the volatility within the Women’s Weekly market – “A lot of this is down to the increased prevalence of multipacks, which are distorting circulations and are becoming an irritant for media buyers,” he said. Northern & Shell was a prime example of this.

The freebie market saw more positive results, which is perhaps to be expected in a post-recession market. Shortlist and Sport continue to dominate the Men’s Lifestyle sector; while Stylist is well on the way to becoming a key player in the Women’s Weekly sector.

The PPA’s view is that the results give an “indication of an improving outlook for the UK consumer magazine sector,” and pointed to the 0.3% increase on the first half of 2009.
“This is an encouraging set of results that reaffirms the popularity of magazines among consumers. Through continued innovation, magazines’ have shown their ability to really engage readers and provide a powerful platform for advertisers,” Barry McIlheney, chief executive of the PPA, said.

This article was originally written by Liz Jaques from Mediatel on 13/8/2010.

To view the article on Mediatel click here.

“The word ‘integration’ seems to bring about feelings of great despair in most advertising and media people. As researchers, we regularly look at integrated campaigns and we know that, come 6pm the various people responsible will arrive at the groups looking disorientated and anxious. Not only with the work they have produced but with precisely who has produced it; clients have done the media buying, media planners have done the account planning, creatives the channel planning, digital experts talking TV and the PRs have come up with the big idea. They have become detached from their core disciplines, distracted by new umbrella jobs that don’t make sense. Everyone feels like they are picking their nose with rubber gloves on

Integrated communications is what everyone wants, and what our industries have been coalescing around for years. And yet if we’re honest we haven’t cracked it, the signs of failure are all too evident.

Planners have been dragged from their disciplines in search of integrated manna, and have become less focussed, less confident, less skilled. Like the final scene in Reservoir Dogs, everybody is left pointing at each other; ‘you?’, ‘me?’, ‘him?’. In simpler times planners of all flavours stood tall, their claim staked, their clients awed. Now they are pygmied, strategically emasculated by the holes in their experience. And in their confusion they have become more competitive, less willing to compromise. There’s a bizarre turf war going on, everyone competing for territory they don’t really want, it’s like everyone invading Belgium.

I don’t think the work has improved as a result of integration either. Too often the creative device is stretched paper thin as it is given an unsympathetic 360 degree once-over out back; expansive ideas pruned and squashed into little spaces; untouchable, statuesque treatments forced unhappily into the spotlight of social media; cute, tactical opportunities forced to labour under the weight of big idea badging. And that’s the relatively logical stuff. Other campaigns have found themselves the victim of ‘integrated planning as excuse for chaos’; outlandish stunts from blue chip brands that end up looking like they have just woken up naked in the hotel foyer, ad funded content from brands with nothing to say, horrid looking sponsorship credits, the list of casualties goes on.

And clients can’t, and don’t, look at this and see success. They don’t think we get it, they don’t think we believe it, and consequently aren’t willing to pay for it. As one client recently confided to me, if you want integration, you have to do it yourself. They’re not talking here about checking the historical stock levels in Wales, or the promotional codes in the Swindon Gazette, they are taking back ownership of the communications architecture. That should be our bit and we’re about to lose it and become picture drawers, spot buyers, release writers and flash geeks.

So what’s the problem, why has nobody got this right? Firstly, I think it’s because we’ve become lop sided in our thinking. Good advertising is built on three things; brand understanding, consumer insight and a great idea. No more no less, forget the company manifesto about transforming communications exchanges or building engagement platforms, this is what we really do. And the drive for integration has created an imbalance in how we do it. Agencies of all flavours have become besotted by the big idea and have neglected the other members of the holy trinity. Ask a planner what the consumer insight is behind their latest campaign and you will be met by blank stares, and that disorientated look I described earlier as they search in vain for a PR exec to point at.

Secondly, by over egging the big idea pudding, we have made our jobs executional rather than strategic. By which I mean that integration has become a process, and often a tiresome, difficult one. We have become builders rather than architects. When faced with the challenge to do integration, we have responded by exploring the ‘how’. And the result has been the dysfunctional phenomena of all agency status meetings, dodgy processes that pass ideas through prisms and the spectre of ‘T shaped people’, whatever that means. The question we should have been asking, and which reframes integration and makes it achievable, isn’t ‘how’ but ‘why?’.

Why did clients suddenly want it? Put simply, they suddenly had lots of agencies and they wanted to feel like the effort was aligned. They wanted to make their money work harder, not low prices but maximised bang for buck. They wanted navigation through the changing landscape. They didn’t ever mention wanting campaigns that could run in every channel known to man, or a lead agency, or one big idea. Integration is about harmony, value and innovation.

Integration can save advertising if we start to think of it as an outcome not a process. You can’t build it and hope they’ll come, you have to aim for it, make it your ambition, let it seep through your veins and become part of your operating system rather than an app to be switched on and off. We need to let integration become its own reward. And it’s the punters who will ultimately see and decide if it’s integrated or not. We should ask one more question; why do people want integrated campaigns. For harmony, value and innovation read clarity, something which is valued, and exciting.

People out there in the real world don’t see the 360 degree plan, or experience every nuance of the carefully crafted campaign. They see fragments, they join up the dots, interpret and deconstruct. ‘Ask not what your advertising does to people, ask what people do to your advertising’, is a retro ad phrase about to come back into fashion.

If we believe in outcomes over process, then there’s a massive evaluation point here. We should be finding clever, consumer centric ways of picking up people’s different experiences of a brand’s communications. We spend too much time measuring out campaigns in the coffee spoons of impacts and ratings, and not enough time seeing what the consumer sees. The metrics of integration are not awareness, recall or impact; the magic formula is an understanding of ‘what do they value (and how much)’, ‘how interested are they (and what have they done)’ and ‘what’s the point (clarity of purpose)’. Measure those three things, do something clever with the numbers and finally we can all stop being bullied by A.I.s and blunt, boring, unreal tracking studies.

The good news is that we can get this right. Firstly, we need to re-balance the effort of our collective endeavour and focus on consumer insight again. Then, we need to walk away from the processes of integration, those curiously worded ‘new planning’ mantras, and get back to the basics of our disciplines and our craft. Finally we need to be a bit more like the consumers we are trying to talk with; chaotic, unpredictable and inconsistent. Here’s the alternative guide to integration:

• The simple insights are the best. I’m all for a bit of complexity and there’s no doubt we’re surrounded by it in the digital world. But sometimes I think we overlook the really straightforward, undemanding truths because they are, well, a bit undemanding. Here’s another way of looking at it; start with a simple truth and do some laddering, ask why and why and why and you tend to find a world of richness and insight lurking away there. Loads of texture rooted in a simple insight, not nonsense clinging to more nonsense.

• Get up close and personal. Observational research is back in fashion. Thanks to behavioural economics and neuroscience-lite, there is new found value in observing the consumer traits that punters can’t tell us about. Evenings in pubs, afternoons in supermarkets, eye tracking and spying are all back on the menu. In a recent study we researched the topic with mums first and then talked to their kids to find out the real truth. Intrepid planners need to find their sense of adventure again.

• Research isn’t the same as insight. We are all oversupplied with research, sitting at our desks not waving but drowning in data. And much of this data is commodity level stuff, building blocks and currencies used and produced with equal lack of imagination. Smart organisations of the future will provide insightful frameworks for interpreting and analysing information. Make friends with a dashboard developer today.

• Silos are the enemy. When our view of the consumer becomes blinkered the game is up. Each discipline has its own source of consumer research; planners have their groups, media people their currencies, DM their data, digital their traffic analysis, and so on. There’s no wonder they can’t be successfully knitted together at the end if they all start from different places. Find a shared starting point, nobody ever conceived in separate beds.

• Rubber gloves off. I have never, ever met a superplanner who has divided their career equally and successfully between every discipline. People love working with talented specialists who know what they are doing. Return to source, sometimes it feels like we’re all a bit embarrassed by our core skill. And it’s a happier way to live.

• Walk away from the process. To paraphrase a saying originally aimed at econometric models, ‘integrated campaigns are like sausages, you don’t want to see them being made’. The processes I’ve seen are too rigid and too uncreative to allow great things to flourish. Comedians are funny, they don’t have a funny process. Outcome not process.

• Normal people don’t care about advertising. This doesn’t mean that we should stop caring, but this insight can lift at least one neurosis from our furrowed brow. No consumer has (or will) ever complain that the print work is tonally inconsistent with the TV ad, or that the testimonial strategy is off brief in digital. In fact consumers are playful creatures when it comes to advertising and they are happy to be treated to a chocolate box of brand delights. Matching luggage is our original sin.

• Cupboards should be organised, not communications. I think we are in danger of over planning. Firstly life isn’t that neat, secondly we create a model of effect which is unrealistic, and thirdly our business has become faster and more opportunistic which calls for fleetness of foot. Somebody clever once said that the map is not the territory, and sometimes it feels like the comms laydown is confused with reality. It isn’t real.

• Consumers are mad. That is, irrational, illogical, untruthful. And yet we play them with a straight bat. Keynes once said “there is nothing so disastrous as a rational investment policy in an irrational world”. Mirroring is the strongest sales technique and we should be meeting our target market with a glint in our eye and pencil up one nostril. Brands should be unexpected, surprising, challenging. Integrated communications all too often produces the opposite; more of the same, yawn, consumer coma.

• It’s time for remuneration. We need a model which values what we do. The current model is barmy; production mark ups, media kick backs, free planning, loss leaders and more (or less depending on how you look at it). One agency we work with is looking for a Return On Idea formula, that’s the way to go and good luck to them. Clients are culpable in this, you get what you deserve.

The top tips:

Why does your client want integration? Their desired outcome holds the key to this and yet I bet nobody has ever asked that question. Harmony, value, innovation.

Why would a consumer want integration? What is the outcome as seen from the couch and the aisle and the laptop. Clarity, valued stuff, excitement.

One big insight, not one big idea. Not lots of little ones that get you nowhere. Gorgeous things can grow from the big ones.

This was meant to be fun. Advertising’s magic is that it is the fun bit of business. We over-plan ourselves into procurement departments.

Think outcome, measure outcome. There is a new evaluation standard out there and the sooner we drop yesterday’s tools the better.”

Chief executive Adam Crozier revealed robust half-year figures yesterday but also admitted ITV’s shortcomings. He said broadcasting had changed rapidly in recent years and said: “ITV is not currently fit to compete in the changed environment.

“The business is overly dependent on TV spot advertising and ITV’s flagship channel is continuing to lose viewing share by platform.”

He outlined plans to maximise revenue through creating paid-for content, using product placements and advertiser-funded programmes – among other strategies – both in terrestrial and online formats.

But industry experts urged ITV not to lose focus on creating quality content to drive mass audiences and to make HD channels attractive.

Steve Hobbs, deputy managing director of Carat, says that on paper the strategy looked like a strong and much needed plan but, he said: “It risks an overemphasis on new revenue streams at the expense of a commercially successful core product at this crucial time in the economic recovery.”

Others challenged the paywall strategy, with one broadcaster source saying: “Sky subscribers will pay for what they see is high-quality or exclusive content. ITV doesn’t really fit that description. It’s a logical step in the long run, but by no means a game-changer and a pretty poor result after months of trying to come up with a pay idea.”

Chris Locke, UK trading director at Starcom Mediavest Group, said the HD initiative was “more of a dabble than a full blown strategy”, adding: “The sense of déjà-vu is overwhelming.”

Former agency executive Graham Brown, now of Media Sense, says a strong ITV can only be good for television and advertisers. But how to generate more impacts via ITV+1, more revenue via HD subs and global distribution, and better access via multiple platforms with a lower programming budget will be the challenge. “Maybe Crozier is betting on a more relaxed regulatory framework?”, he says.

Clients are circumspect about ITV’s plans. A Unilever spokesman said: “We welcome any opportunity for ITV to strengthen its business. A stronger business means greater investment in programming, which will ultimately benefit its viewers.”

This article was written by Branwell Johnson and appeared on Marketing Week.co.uk on 4/8/2010.

If you subscribe to Marketing Week.co.uk, you can view the article by clicking here

The House of Lords communications committee is to look at the regulatory changes to the ad business already under discussion or due to be implemented, from product placement to ITV’s self-proclaimed albatross, Contract Rights Renewal (CRR).

Part of the investigation will also look at “how much of the recent decline in television advertising was due to the impact of the economic recession and how much was the result of migration of advertising to the internet, and other causes”.

The news was unexpected because many in industry felt that no government body had the appetite, or the energy, to hold a thorough review of such a complicated sector right now. The UK is just emerging from recession and the after shocks of a change in government while the TV industry going through rapid change, both in terms of technology and structure.
Add to that the fact that the Competition Commission (CC), after a thorough and lengthy industry dialogue, has just ruled there will be no change to the CRR remedy imposed on ITV in 2003 and it’s no surprise many feel the dust needs to settle before more consultations and inquiries. The Conservative party did signal before the general election that it might look at CRR and the CC’s remit but it was not expected to be a priority – and there is no indication that this may have been the springboard for the review.

Unsurprisingly, media agencies and clients are less in favour of another regulatory review of CRR, as they believe ITV is in a strong position in regard to audiences and ad revenues. The broadcaster’s results are expected on Tuesday (3 August) and are expected to bolster this perception.

Chris Locke, trading director at Starcom, says: “The CC has just been through this at length and found no reason to remove CRR in the foreseeable future, as the view was ITV would leverage their undoubted power to the detriment of advertisers and the other TV channels.
“TV is in rude health in a tough market elsewhere. Ofcom and the CC look at this regularly, consulting with all interested parties, and, to date, nothing they have seen warrants any changes to CRR.
Frankly we don’t need another body looking into this – it is more than covered regularly elsewhere.”

Client body ISBA is a little more circumspect and Bob Wootton, director of media and advertising, says: “It’s the prerogative of the committee to hold their inquiry and, naturally, we will be responding. It is our hope that Isba is called to give evidence so that we can reaffirm our longstanding and well-known position on CRR. The more interesting point in this process will come after the committee’s deliberations and its recommendations are known.”

However, some argue for a more visionary shake up of the whole traditional TV trading system that, on the one hand sees powerful broadcasters flexing their muscles during the seasonal trading sessions, while on the other hand agency buyers look to volume deals.
There is no suggestion that the committee’s review could lead to any overhaul of the trading system but Julia Jordan, UKTV joint acting CEO and executive director, business & Operations, says: “Our concern has been the recent fragmented focus by Ofcom; issues such as CRR and Airtime Sales Regulations cannot be considered in a vacuum.

“TV is a rapidly evolving medium and a complex trading market, however regulation has been grounded in historical, highly-commoditised trading models without considering how the market must necessarily evolve to support the new medium of television – defined as quality long-form AV content – delivered across multiple platforms.”

She suggest that the wider investigation must explore a “future-facing model” that appropriately supports the broadcast industry but with the ultimate benefit clearly going to consumers and advertisers alike.
There are other elements to the committee review beyond CRR that may ultimately lead to benefits to advertisers. Product placement will be a focus. The previous government introduced legislation to allow product placement but with a long list of restrictions and prohibitions. Could some of these be eased so that, for instance, a beer brand could appear in the Rover’s Return in Coronation Street?

Graham Brown, a former Aegis executive and now partner at consultant and media value company Media Sense International, says that while the reasons for the review’s timing are unclear, on balance, it is likely to lead to a better environment for clients.
“The political back-drop of this inquiry is unclear however, if it’s intention is to set place more regulation e.g. around product placement, and create higher costs for advertisers through the straightforward ’reduction or removal of the CRR, then it will be counter-productive for both marketers and the broader economy.

“If on the other-hand and as seems more likely given the economic imperatives, the outcome results in a more robust, dynamic and less regulated television marketplace (including the BBC!), with opportunity for growth at the forefront, then it is a positive initiative and should be welcomed.

The deadline for written evidence is 24 September so those with an interest in challenging the long-established status quo and building a healthy TV industry fit for marketing purposes in the next decade should start putting pen to paper.

This article was written by Branwell Johnson and appeared on Marketing Week.co.uk on 30/7/2010.

If you subscribe to Marketing Week.co.uk, you can view the article by clicking here

But audience numbers may not be the singularly important measure that they once seemed to be on the web; they certainly won’t be for The Times in its new experiment. And The Times’ effort is only a beginning.

But it’s still revealing, and perhaps saddening, for some of the paper’s journalists, that The Times is seeing its prominence on the web fade. In the weeks before the pay wall went up, it enjoyed online market share of 4.29% in the print news and media category, according to Experian Hitwise. By the week ending July 10, online share had dropped to 1.43% — 33% of where it had been five weeks previously. By the week ending July 17, share had dropped even further, to 1.37%.

The pay wall effect seems evident from other angles as well. The Times Online attracted nearly 2.8 million visitors in May but only 2.2 million in June, a 21% decline, according to ComScore data. The average time visitors spent on the site fell 24% from May to June, meanwhile, and the number of pages visitors viewed sank 32%, according to ComScore. U.K. newspaper sites as a whole saw unique visitors slip 2%, time spent edge up 1.4% and pages viewed dip 1%.

The Times refused to comment on numbers, but those close to the matter suggest that about 150,000 users registered for access to the Times and Sunday Times while they were free, with 15,000 apparently agreeing to pay money.

The site is currently promoting an offer of £1 ($1.50) for a 30-day trial, after which the cost is either £1 for a 24-hour pass, or £2 ($3) a week.

Although The Times will not discuss numbers, they are understood to be trying to charge a premium for advertising behind the pay wall. Sources indicate that ad rates have doubled to $45 per thousand users.

It’s wrong to get caught up in the traffic numbers, said John Baylon, group digital trading director at SMG Group. “People are asking the wrong questions,” he said. “The point is to make money out of the subscribers you have. It’s about revenue per customer, not the number of customers.”

Advertisers on thetimes.co.uk include DHL, BPP flexible learning, Hewlett Packard and Dubai property developer Emaar. Mr. Baylon said that News International has not been selling the site very hard, and are instead focusing on internal issues and looking at how it is all working.

There are also numerous factors at work in these early days beyond consumers’ willingness to pay for news on the web. Mr. Murdoch’s News Corp., for example, needs to get the site better sorted out. Readers have complained that it is slow and cumbersome, making it a harder sell when there are so many other news and lifestyle sites a quick click away.

The current Times pay wall is also an essentially “all or nothing” offering, shutting out non-subscribers from almost all content, but many commentators still favor a hybrid approach including a bit more free content that’s subsidized by advertising and serves to draw in potential subscribers.

“I continue to believe that a mixed model, with multiple ways of making money, is the only way for general news publishers,” said Hugo Drayton, CEO of InSkin Media.
“But it’s a lot of hard work. There will be areas of content that will prove ‘payable,’ but not general news. I am yet to be convinced that the pay wall is more than part of the answer in a complex, fast-changing market.”

Mr. Baylon, on the other hand, is more optimistic about the long-term prospects for the pay wall. “The consumer mindset is a big boulder, but 15 years ago, when Murdoch started BSkyB, nobody thought people would pay for TV when you could get it for free. Now he has 10 million subscribers, built on the back of great content.”

The Times experiment, and all the attendant adjustments that will follow, needs to happen, said Graham Brown, founding director of consultancy Mediasense. Consumers can gorge on free content all day, but newspapers might not be able to survive without charging, he said. “The internet is an all-you-can-eat buffet, but eventually, like the music industry, newspapers will learn that they can’t continue that way. … It’s commendable that Murdoch is prepared to take the risk.”

News Corp.’s Sun and its Sunday sibling title, News of the World, are expected to eventually follow The Times into some sort of online pay strategy.

“They are likely to test all kinds of permutations… it’s their train set after all…and if they can find a way to make digital content pay, then it’s all worthwhile” Mr. Brown said.

This article was written by Emma Hall and appeared on Advertising Age.com on 22/7/2010.

If you subscribe to Advertising Age, you can view the article by clicking here.

Last week’s annual media owner versus media agency cricket match at the Hurlingham Club, which raised around £100,000 for the Lord’s Taverners charity, demonstrated that this remains an industry, underneath its competitive streak, that is capable of incredible unity and generosity.

Most of the time, though, industry players seem more intent on smashing each other’s businesses for six than working constructively together.

Throw clients into the mix and the situation becomes even more bitterly contested. For instance, last week brought more apparent examples of pitch madness with our sister title Campaign Asia reporting that Reckitt Benckiser is attempting to charge media agencies $10,000 for the privilege of pitching for its business in India, leading to some agencies refusing to take part.

Closer to home, Thomas Cook seems to have scared off some agencies from its UK media pitch with a line in its RFI, under “Fees and Costs”, that makes it clear that it expects “a substantial signing on fee in return for a three-year contract award”. Agency sources have suggested that this could be as high as £1 million.

It seems we are moving into hitherto uncharted territory – at least in the scale of some of these demands. Which has led some media agencies to believe that the role of new-business intermediaries has become increasingly vital. Agencies have praised recent pitches run by intermediaries such as the British Gas contest, with former agency man Paul Longhurst acting as a consultant, and last year’s Lloyds Banking Group pitch, which was managed by MediaSense, as examples of pitch best practice.

The presence of a consultant is not automatically a positive but the involvement of an AAR, Agency Insight or MediaSense on a pitch process should reassure agencies that this is likely to be a client that cares about media or at least wants to run a balanced pitch. As one agency business development director puts it: “I’m increasingly a believer that intermediaries are a positive force in this – it does them no favours to base a pitch solely on price as procurement can do that. And I’ve yet to see an intermediary-led pitch that has descended to the recent levels of farce.”

Media owners such as News International (see piece opposite) are searching for a higher valuation for the content that they provide and, in my view, so they should. Agencies, which are capable of creating excellent work (Mindshare’s clever and effective campaign for First Direct that recently won a Cannes Media Lion and ZenithOptimedia’s O2 activity, which won the Grand Prix at the Thinkbox Awards, were both impressive), should do the same. While media shows great generosity towards charity, a little more towards its own ideas would benefit all sides in the long run.

If you subscribe to Campaign Live, you can view the article by clicking here.

Called Media Minds, our Group is a forum for expressing, exchanging and commenting on current and emerging issues that affect the global media industry. We now have well over 700 members from around the world.

Every quarter we publish a summary of the key topics that got our group talking the most.

The issues that mattered most this quarter were:

The 2010 World Cup winners and losers
Emerging tensions in client/agency relationships
The Digital media shakeout

Click on this link to see a full summary of these discussions.

We hope you find what our group had to say interesting.

Prior to Joining MediaSense, Ryan was Principal Consultant with Billetts and Account Director at Profero, the leading independent digital agency.

Graham Brown commented: “We are delighted that Ryan is going to be working with us. He is a first-class operator, highly rated by clients and agencies alike. Most importantly, he understands the limitations of applying a traditional auditing approach to the evaluation of digital channels, and is excited about the prospect of building a different and more relevant service”.

Ryan Kangisser commented: “I am very excited to be joining MediaSense. They are developing a fresh and potentially transformational approach to managing performance in digital channels. It’s a great time to join them and I’m looking forward to putting new media at the heart of their offering and to leading their digital charge.”

To see the story in Media Week click here

Clients have been forcing media agencies to pitch for accounts based almost solely on the low price they claim they can negotiate from media owners.

Media owners are in turn rebelling and refusing to give extra discounts.
Increasingly clients are able to go direct to data-rich media owners and technology makes this easier.

The debates were heated and few punches were pulled. In conclusion, there were a number of interesting suggested actions put forward by the panel:

1) SET UP A MEDIA REGULATOR

There is a case for setting up a media regulator, with the Financial Services Authority as a model, to monitor media buying and selling. The client body ISBA is the most appropriate organisation to drive the establishment of such a regulator.

2) EXAMINE THE ROLE OF AUDITORS

In tandem with this, the role of media auditors in negotiations needs closer examination to ensure a fair price is being paid for media.

3) AGENCIES NEED TO DEVELOP A SOUNDER BUSINESS MODEL

Urgent action is needed to ensure the future of media owners and agencies, in particular to develop a sound business model for media agencies that are in danger of disintermediation.

4) FIND A CLEAR MEASURE OF MEDIA VALUE

Faced with being viewed as a commodity, the media sector (owners and media agencies) needs to act in unison to redefine its category and develop a clear measurement system of the value it creates.

5) CLIENT EDUCATION

Clients have a role in educating their internal stakeholders on the value of media and to support the development of a more precise measurement and fairer remuneration system.

6) GREATER CLIENT UNDERSTANDING BY AGENCIES

Agencies must realise the time pressures clients are under and make only relevant proposals to experiment with media choices.

All in all a clear clarion call for change in the media industry and a number of areas of significant overlap with our own views on the current status quo.

To read the full report of the debate and view a video clip summarising the conclusions click here

In his speech he argues that transformational change is required now in the marketing communications industry to ensure that clients and agencies maximise the opportunity for brilliant and effective work.

In summary, he believes that there are eight areas that in combination, the response to which by the agency word could lead to transformational change for the industry:

-the changing role of consumers
-ownership of the strategic agenda
-the relevance of the line – ATL/BTL/TTL
-open sourcing for ideas
-the impact of digital
-outcome based compensation
-new advertriser-media owner relationship model
-increased pressure on overheads

He also identifies five opportunity areas for clients to address to help create an environment in which this transformational change can take place:

-invite agencies into your world
-clarify purpose (what, who and how)
-work at the relationship
-set and stick to best practice
-address the emergence of procurement functions

We couldn’t agree more!

To read the whole speech, click here: