Media Management

Seeing the forest from the trees: Maximising the value of media. Special Report

The Big Picture

“Pull Quote”

It’s only by seeing all aspects of media in the round that CMOs can make truly informed decisions.

Maximising the value of media using the Ebiquity Media Model™

Marketing and media today have become complex and messy. Chief Marketing Officers must contend with fragmentation, an increasing number of different players providing technology platforms and solutions, and a whole new lexicon of marketing technology.

As Christian Polman, Chief Strategy Officer at Ebiquity and author of the Ebiquity Media Model™, said “ CMOs need a structured framework to not only make sense of all aspects of today’s complex and fragmented media landscape but also take advantage of the emerging opportunities available for brands. We’ve designed the Ebiquity Media Model™ to help CMOs see the forest for the trees and make more informed decisions about insights, media planning, creative content, buying and activation, and measuring real outcomes.”

DOWNLOAD THE FULL VIEWPOINT HERE

The job of the CMO is surely the most disparate and all-encompassing in the C-suite. There are many different components jostling for limited attention – from creative to data, from tech to analytics, from customer experience to media. CMOs are at the forefront of digital transformation for brands – often leading to the development of new customer experiences – yet they can feel like they’re playing an expensive game of cat and mouse. Just when they think they’ve dealt with one, another appears.

Just as one problem is solved, new ones emerge

For instance, a 2017 study from Gartner showed that the CMO’s IT budget is typically on the same scale as the average Chief Information Officer (Ref 1) More than 20% of all marketing spend now goes towards marketing technology. Analytics has also come of age. Gartner reports that more than 9% of global marketing budgets were dedicated to analytics in 2017. With so many different domains to control and align, CMOs run the risk of being jack of all trades. The diverse, changing responsibilities in the function designed to drive growth are well-captured in the coverage of a recent report by the CMO Council, “From Chief Storyteller to Chief Growth Officer, the Changing Role of the CMO”(Ref 2)

The challenges and complexity are nowhere more acute than in media

 This makes it hard to get out of the weeds – from issues as diverse as brand safety, viewability, contract compliance, media efficiency and effectiveness – and see the bigger picture. Pulled in dozens of different directions, by both the big idea and Big Data, it’s a wonder that marketing leaders are able to focus on media in the context of marketing and overall business goals. And yet it’s only by seeing all aspects of media in the round that CMOs can make truly informed decisions about insight, media planning, media buying and activation, content strategy that drives results, and measuring real outcomes.

What’s more, while media might be messy, there are still some fundamental principles of media management that haven’t changed. These help CMOs to define and design the best operating model for their business, implement this media strategy, and manage their agencies and tech partners, ensuring the right governance and compliance are in place.

Ebiquity has spent the past 20 years as the ‘left-brain’ advisor to the CMOs of many of the world’s biggest advertisers. Their purpose is to create clarity for marketing leaders to:-

1. Help them put all the different and increasing number of components of media into their proper context.
2. Enable them to choose the right agency and ad tech partners.
3. Continuously manage media performance and ensure best-in-class media governance.
4. Empower CMOs to leverage media and content to maximise return on investment and deliver greater business profit.

In this Viewpoint paper, Ebiquity considers all the different domains of media that CMOs need to master to make them work hardest for their brands, both at the level of individual components and as an integrated whole.

Ebiquity do this by setting out the framework they use with their CMO clients that enables them to master all the interconnected challenges of media – operational, technological, creative, and organisational – as an integrated whole. It’s the ambition of Ebiquity that it becomes the defining framework to help CMOs tame the increasingly fragmented media ecosystem.

5 Key questions CEOs should ask about media

1. Do we understand the role of media-related marketing investments in driving business outcomes?
2. Do we view media as strategically important to driving business success?
3. Do we understand the return on investment that media delivers, and are we investing at the right levels?
4. Are we working with the right partners, in the right way, to deliver our desired business outcomes?
5. Do we have access to independent advice, where required, to solve our most complex media-related challenges?

Ebiquity have also tackled some of the most pressing and significant challenges in media governance facing brands today as we transition into an evermore digital media ecosystem. This includes their work with the ANA to write the “prescriptions, principles, and processes” recommended for advertisers to achieve greater media transparency.

Media Transparency: Prescriptions, Principles, and Processes for Advertisers

Recommendations from the ANA report, written by Ebiquity and Firmdecisions

1. Agent vs principal where the advertiser agrees to the agent acting as a principal, the advertiser should have put reliable processes in place to manage potential conflicts of interest.
2. Contract content advertisers should ensure that contracts with their media agencies contain robust provisions to deliver full transparency.
3. Contract audit rights advertisers should have robust and far-reaching audit rights which allow them to fully track contract compliance and measure media value delivery.
4. Contract governance advertisers should implement strong, disciplined internal processes to deliver contracts which ensure strict accountability, compliance with effective management principles, rigorous governance, and significant senior management oversight.
5. Data and technology advertisers should take ownership of data and exert control over the media and technology used on their behalf.
6. Advertiser responsibilities advertisers are responsible for more active stewardship of their media investments and fair compensation of their agency partners.
7. Code of conduct advertisers and media agencies should sign up to mutually-binding codes of conduct that help to ensure that the intention to deliver transparency is actually delivered.

The Ebiquity Media Model™, a best practice approach to managing media holistically

 To help CMOs get a better view of the big picture Ebiquity developed the Ebiquity Media Model™, a best practice approach to managing media holistically that sets advertisers up for success. Ebiquity also routinely assesses the impact of all marketing inputs – pricing and promotions, online and offline – right across the customer journey.

 DOWNLOAD VIEWPOINT HERE

References

1 CMO Spend Study 2017-2018 (Gartner), October 2017

2 Modern Marketing Today reporting on The CMO’s Growth Driving Playbook (The CMO Council), September 2018

About the authors

Christian Polman is Group Chief Strategy Officer at Ebiquity plc based in its London offices. He is responsible for helping define the company’s strategic direction, leading its approach to M&A and partnerships, and driving Ebiquity’s profile in the marketplace through thought leadership and marketing communications activities.

Martin Vinter is the Managing Director of Ebiquity’s UK based media practice, leading both the UK and International media teams and based in London. Having held various discipline, client and leadership roles for 3 of the ‘big 6’ holding groups (including Publicis, WPP and Dentsu Aegis Network), he has extensive experience ranging from traditional media to digital performance marketing.