Media agencies need to change
Published: Jun 10, 2009
AD:TECH MEDIA AGENCIES DIGITAL MEDIA
Singapore - Media agencies need to better adapt and evolve to accommodate the rise of digital media, according to a keynote session held at ad:tech today.
Chris Dobson, executive VP of global advertising at the BBC, speaking at the CEO Power Panel - The Publishers session, said media planning and buying "needs to change".
"We're in the 1960s still in the way we plan and buy media," he said.
Lori Sobel, managing director of Google Southeast Asia, said media agencies are changing.
"I'm starting to see a paradigm shift in many agencies," she said.
"For us it's about building the relationships."
Ken Mandel, Yahoo Southeast Asia VP and managing director, said "we make it hard [for media agencies] to buy digital media".
"We have to focus on planners," he said.
"We have to arm them with research and insights."
BBC's Dobson said agencies have to bold with their clients and move out of their comfort zones.
"They need to be not afraid to experiment. Agencies have a lot to do to move this forward," he said.
Yahoo's Mandel said agencies should encourage their clients to set aside an "innovation budget" where marketing dollars can be used on digital.
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The end of media and creative agencies as we know it has been debated to death since the dawn of the commercial web round about 1997, and the spectacular rise of the digital revolution.
Granted, disintegrating consumer attention is not a beast that can be tamed with normal media whips in a world turned hyper-connected, hyper-opinionated, uber-demanding.
Granted, digital pathways with its infinite number of ever growing entry points is not something that can be hardwired to communication strategies with the methodical precision of conventional media.
Granted, making the leap from inside-out comfort zones to outside-in no man's land has seen best-of-breed consumer connection strategies and customer journeys tangled into Gordon knots.
Granted, applying cookie-cutter insights and research to independently-minded adorers and detractors, an anarchy of promiscuity for a thousand tribes, a million communities, a billion cliques; and a trillion opinions - seems a bit to the side of yesterday's stale lunch.
So while yes, media agencies have to change just like everyone else to address a consumer funnel turned upside down, something more fundamental needs to happen - the courage to say "I don't know" to clients. Only then can true loop-the-loop learning processes happen, customer by customer, cent by profitable cent.
The day media agencies present one page credentials to clients essentially saying "I'm an idiot"..."but I'm a fast learner", is the day we will see real conviction in making productive change happen.
As BBC's Dobson highlighted in this article, "They (the agencies) need to be not afraid to experiment. Agencies have a lot to do to move this forward". One can only wonder if the need to be not afraid to fail, is what's really keeping agencies from doing a lot "to move this forward".
Terence Chan
Project Oxygen