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How can media agencies maintain an edge over programmatic disruptors?

How can media agencies maintain an edge over programmatic disruptors?

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Brands, agencies and martech/adtech firms are all now looking to get a cut of the growing programmatic market. As new players join the ecosystem, roles are constantly shifting and being disrupted. However, veterans at a programmatic panel discussion organised by Unruly said that this shifting identity may not necessarily be a bad thing. They also discussed some areas that should be tackled to shape the ideal ecosystem that the industry wants to see in the future.S4 Capital CEO APAC Michel de Rijk explained that brands these days work with numerous partners when it comes to programmatic. Sometimes the mix includes vendors, consultants and even in-house teams. "I don't believe in the foreseeable future, there is a one size fits all. As an industry, we need to stop thinking that it's a battle between the agencies and the consultants. I don't think that's the case," he added.Sonal Patel, president programmatic services APAC at Dentsu Aegis Network added that clients also have to spark the right conversations of synergising pockets of data across their departments, and martech companies are helping to bring the issue up the chain and address it. "We have a part to play but certainly we can't be fearing or fear-mongering [new players]. We should be leveraging all these [disruptors], and working with them to cooperate," added Patel.The future role of agenciesTo provide value-add and reinforce its relevance in the market, MediaCom's APAC chief product officer Josh Gallagher said being an advisor to clients is key. He explained agencies need to provide alternative perspectives to clients - and that is where the true value lies. "It's really thinking, from an agency perspective, about the types of areas that are important to programmatic in disguise. To solve problem in a better way, but not necessarily control everything [for clients]," he added.While programmatic is touted as the future, de Rijk said agencies have to think about why it makes sense, and how it can bring a significant impact to brands. Commenting on the new fragmented world, de Rijk, who was formerly from GroupM's performance media arm Xaxis, said that he is confident that agencies will still exist 10 years on. He added,Somebody once said agencies are like cockroaches - they will survive and they will reinvent themselves to deliver value in a different way than they do today.Patel also agreed, sharing that agencies sometimes forget that every advertiser goes to them with a business problem. As such, agencies must figure out the problem to help clients solve business problems. She added that she is now seeing more cooperation than competition amongst the agencies, which enables them to think about the bigger picture and build levers to issues such as ad blockers and how agencies can make sure advertisers understand the value of in-app versus mobile web.The right level of controlControl, is another hot topic among the panellists, in light of recent spotlight on brand safety. Bringing up the pedophilia debacle on YouTube, Patel pointed out that clients are "spending ad dollars on content that's not been managed by anyone" and risk facilitating fake news as a result.Unfortunately, de Rijk said that the reality remains that brands are and will still be spending majority of their budget on Google and Facebook because it is the mix that "works best." He emphasised a need for advertising platforms to step up to bring about a real change.De Rijk added that brands too, have to take more ownership of who they are and what they stand for. He added, "[Brands] have been too dependent on the agency in the past. They just gave away too much control. They are sort of panicking at the moment and they start to take control back.""Sometimes [it gets] a little too much and they realise it's not as easy as they thought it was, so they give it back a little bit, and they find a balance somewhere in between," he added.

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