Media Management

Tectonic change in media requires an equivalent movement in Media Procurement

A Better Understanding

One aspect that generated significant discussion was the need for advertisers to address ‘information asymmetry’ in the media market, a situation where the buyer is not as clued-up as the seller.

The first article highlighted the incredibly dynamic nature of today’s media scene and our entry into the world of  ‘Advertising 3.0’, where privacy, first-party data, AI and closed-loop systems of measurement will be pre-eminent.

In particular, Retail Media, Digital Commerce and shoppable Connected TV are re-drawing the media landscape. From a procurement perspective they require significant attention as they bring together stakeholders from diverse disciplines, including product, sales, CRM, pricing, distribution and different kinds of marketing. This includes shopper and trade marketing as well as the consumer-facing side.

Hence there is plenty of internal alignment needed as well as new supply-chain partners in complex structures. There are individual ad tech eco-systems for each channel, and fewer aspects are falling under centralised agency support systems.

If ‘Advertising 3.0’ is the way ahead and media procurement has to match the pace of change, the question is how this can be done. The Media day of the conference supplied some of the answers.

My opening address described the evolution of advertising and reminded the audience that advertisers themselves are buying the media not just the services that deliver it, and therefore they should aim to procure effectiveness, not just savings or value.

The dynamic nature of the media market was dissected by Douglas McCabe of Enders Analysis and Graham McKay of Dyson. They outlined the nature of the changes in the market and its fundamental effect on the procurement discipline, underscoring the need to adapt and be flexible in a market that never stands still and where there is an over-abundance of advertising, much of it of little or no value.

The Retail Media guru Colin Lewis guided the audience through the fastest growing media eco-sphere. Customer data-led media are set to outgrow any other media sector and become a feature for many companies with large customer databases, not just retail.

Colin also described how the face of retailing is changing both in-store and out-of-store, within retailers’ web and app pages and offsite.

The rest of the day provided detailed insights into how today’s media procurement discipline needs to adapt. This sentence from the first article supplies the essentials:

In this complex market, knowledge and rigour are mandatory and media procurement should be a specialised function, working with internal stakeholders as well as independent providers to ensure the right level of governance, contractual precision, measurement and contract verification.

The presentations and panels that followed tackled the change in the market from a governance standpoint, exploring the way that advertiser businesses are re-configuring their internal organisations and operations, their supply-chain relationships and achieving the commercial, financial, contractual and legal rigour that needs to be applied.

One aspect that generated significant discussion was the need for advertisers to address ‘information asymmetry’ in the media market, a situation where the buyer is not as clued-up as the seller. This applies to much of today’s media market and especially in the digital channels where several intermediaries are involved.

Advertisers often don’t know the full extent of the entities working on their behalf, what they do, how much they value they add and frequently how much they earn.

With extended and obscure supply-chains, strong media governance is crucial, far-reaching and leading-edge contracts are necessary and the ability to audit the entire contract is now key.

The panel that featured Stephen Broderick of Media Marketing Compliance, Gerry D’Angelo (ex-P&G) and Nick Swimer of Lee & Thompson kicked off the various discussions about how good media governance can only really be achieved by having the right contracts with the relevant supply-chain partners but also ensuring that contract compliance isn’t  left to chance and has the broadest possible reach, now that they are so extensive and multi-faceted.

The conference featured several presentations and panels that provided guidelines to delegates as to how to manage the new market conditions, including:

• A description from the World Federation of Advertisers of how their Global Media Charter can help advertisers cope with measurement and accountability, people and partners and sustainability
• Havas and Jacobs Douwe Egberts showing how new KPIs have been developed to mirror the evolving customer journey and to address changing operating models and the need to balance short-term goals with longer-term innovation.
• ID Comms demonstrating how they are helping their clients manage the process of evaluating digital channels through a new measurement programme and platform
• The discussion on how Retail Media is changing the face of marketing, with Colin Lewis providing deep insight, followed by ISBA describing their essential Retail Media Framework
• ISBA and MediaSense opening up the black box of ‘audience extension, whereby some media vendors use third party platforms to deliver greater reach, sometimes in ways that are untransparent and verging on malpractice
• Robert Wegenek dived into the necessary intricacies of global media services contracts and how to achieve the best terms that take into account the varying media practices across the world
• Agency Mania Solutions and eBay showed how different audit practices can be successfully used to provide greater transparency and trust between clients and agencies and even help within client organisations
• The Advertising Association explained how sustainability and carbon measurement can be integrated into media planning and execution
• Nick Sparey of Illumino chairing a panel that talked about good media governance, with insightful contributions from Progmatic, Adfidence and Redmill.
• Active International educating the audience on the value of trade exchange and the way it has evolved to provide more advantages to advertisers
• Ebiquity advising on some quick wins in ‘audience extension’, Made for Advertising websites and apps and Advanced TV

It was a packed day which covered a huge amount of ground. The audience discussion at the end encouraged further topics for the future, including pitching best practice, new thinking in agency payments and relationship appraisal.

The original aim was to have a media conference for procurement people, not a media procurement event alone, and the feedback has been very positive.

The 2025 event will no doubt re-visit many of this year’s themes, given their importance and the pace of change. There is much to discuss and debate and the Marketing Procurement IQ conference will remain a place for lively discussion on the dynamic media market and how media procurement is evolving to address it.

About the author.

Nick Manning is a Media Agency co-founder, ex-agency CEO, Founder at Encyclomedia International, Non-Exec Chairman, Media Marketing Compliance, Adtech advisor, commentator, investor, writer