Justin Cochrane

In the latest episode of the IAB UK podcast, Dave S. sits down with Sophia Haynes and James Chandler to talk about the IAB's newly launched Environmental Sustainability FAQs, it's rationale, and how we at GroupM UK are using them day-to-day. Listen here 🎧 https://lnkd.in/eTDyKXGD #GroupMUK #Sustainability

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Is the answer to the race to the bottom for agencies to become more consultative ? Excellent provocation as always from Omar Oakes who makes some great points about the lack of challenging behaviour in agency/client relationships today and the lack of growth in revenue leading to decline in agency fees. There’s a lot going on here. My tuppence worth from the purview of running a media agency group then setting up and growing a marketing consultancy for the last 4 years: * Holdco agencies lost their way when they 1) started to take a principle not agency approach to media buying 2) started to compromise the craft of planning * Creative thinking and innovation has suffered as a result - too much sameness in strategy and reliance on performance marketing * It’s not about brand/the big idea OR data driven activation, it’s about AND i.e finding the right balance and impact from both but most agencies are so siloed they can’t join this up * There’s a big difference between being “consultative” and being a consultant. The latter is focused on business outcomes and the levers that deliver revenue growth not all the noisy media and advertising metrics. This is as much about process and capabilities as it is about platforms and spend.. * Agencies in general commoditise their service and struggle to get paid fairly for the strategic and transformative work - this is largely client and not agency driven and marketers need to be prepared to pay accordingly for genuinely differentiating analytics, strategy and innovation.. * Consultancies scope precisely and instil a robust project management, gated approach to projects minimising scope creep and enabling value based pricing discussions Agencies are full of incredible talent who want to help their clients grow but too often the commercial constraints in the agency business get in the way of good work and partnership. When we consult we see great thinking and talent but it’s often the contractual constraints and the siloes that get in the way.. The major gap we see at CvE - Marketing Consultancy is between the high-level operating model and transformational thinking of the management consultants and the often narrow advertising/media/campaign thinking of most agencies. Brands need expert marketing and media practitioners to bridge this gap or else the promised revenue growth never materialises. This is an opportunity for everyone in the ecosystem but mostly those that lean in to client-led, business outcome focused thinking. Bravo Brian Jacobs & Nick Manning for continuing to bang this important drum and Omar for focusing on journalism focused on the issues that really matter..

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In 2021 Mediabrands CEO Mark Coad warned media agencies risked massive churn and despondent staff due to the sheer volume of dull, manual tasks they had to crunch through daily. So the firm started to build an automation platform in a bid to make bots handle 75 per cent of the overall media agency investment workflow. Since going live it’s slashed employee manual burn by 65,329 hours, says COO Geoff Clarke – and that’s just the start. Here’s what they did, and what the bots now do. IPG Mediabrands APAC IPG Mediabrands

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As CTV viewership is thriving, this is causing a problem (albeit a good one) on how to effectively reach consumers wherever they are streaming. 60% of people in the UK have up to three streaming services (The Trade Desk CTV Report 2024), whilst the proliferation and ease of access of AVOD and FAST services is ever increasing viewing opportunities - for example LG Channels saw a 120% increase in monthly average users (LG Ad Solutions The Big Shift: (Wave II)). Just as viewers are spoilt for choice, as marketers we’re spoilt for opportunities to reach them. We're being hampered though due to the fragmented nature of activating in different environments, which in turn limits aggregated addressability. SVOD subscriptions are in ~20mm households in the UK, with a lot of discussion around the big players, but their ad-tier household penetration still has some way to go: Netflix’s ad-tier is just shy of 10%, whilst Disney is less than 3% (Barb Audiences Establishment Survey Q2 2024). Prime nailed their ads-by-default approach with little kickback (probably due to minimal ads for the time being and the wider Amazon offering), but consumers do not stick with just one platform. These still require being bought in silo even via DSP activations. For CTV campaigns to scale, a multitude of partners across the ecosystem need to be part of the media plan to ensure your target audiences can be reached effectively and at scale. To do this, you need to work with a partner that has the ability to plan, activate, and measure across multiple partners in a seamless, aggregated manner to maximise scale. This comes in three parts: data, technology, and insights. I’ll comment in a future post on how we’re doing this at Azerion UK, but if you want to know more beforehand, drop me a message and I’ll share how. #tv #ctv #streaming #bvod #avod #fast #svod #adtech #programmatic #ott

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The latest IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) Bellwether report highlights a “solid expansion” in total marketing budgets in Q1. David Grainger our senior vice-president and head of planning told The Media Leader that the “optimism” in the latest report showed “the resilience of the UK marketing landscape”. 🚀 He said: “It also points to how brands are beginning to adapt to the new communications economy.” Read more from David and other industry experts here 👉 https://bit.ly/44a5EoO #UKMarketing #MainMediaAdvertising #MarketingTrends #BreakthroughThinking #NewCommunicationsEconomy

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OMD EMEA has released its Q4 updated Network Signals 2024 report, tapping into the combined power of the Strategy & Insight community across OMD, with 31 signals from 14 markets.   The report groups signals by themes of commonality and the consumer tensions they represent, like subscription pathways, time economy, and media activism. It highlights the effects on markets and clients, illustrating how OMD can provide support, supplemented with informative case studies.   Download the free full report here: https://lnkd.in/eqNbA_Dt   #NetworkSignals #Insights #Report

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Trust is advertising has improved albeit from a very low base. Although media remains at 26% and on par with government (which given the current state of UK politics certainly says something). Trust is the hardest to build and the easiest to loose. We talk about it a lot with the clients we work with as it's so essential for brands. Advertising quality remains a key driver "Chiefly, whether a consumer finds an ad enjoyable is most important to creating trust. Other main reasons cited for trusting ads include whether the ad provided useful information, whether there existed a clear value exchange for viewing the ad and whether it made some social contribution" On the other hand, bombardment remains the biggest challenge to it "The feeling that ads are not only seen too frequently but also get in the way of enjoying the content they are bought against. Additional distrust drivers include whether ads target vulnerable groups, issues related to data privacy and targeting, and advertising deemed “unhealthy” to people or the environment. So good to know things are improving, but essential with the rise of AI and automated creative that we keep the user experience of the consumer as a priority. Otherwise the small gains will evaporate in a flash. It's something we've been really leaning in on at DAIVID 🦩helping advertisers measure creative quality quickly and at scale so they can measure all of their content. For our media partners we are helping with best practice creative playbooks for new formats that get the UX right.

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This is a very well-informed and detailed examination of the complex and murky area of 'principal-based' media buying with particularly insightful comments from Ruben Schreurs It shows just how difficult it is for Advertisers to truly know what is going on in their name and with their money, so seeking independent advice, the tightest contractual terms and the most thorough audit rights are all vital to avoid the many elephant traps. But why has the world of media reached a point where the advertiser has to count their fingers after they've shaken hands with their media agency? Radical new approaches to accountability and transparency are needed, but these have to include a grown-up discussion about terms of business. We can't get to a point where fees are zero and all the margin is made on media trading, surely?

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