Media advertising continues to be the most significant single component of most advertisers’ marketing budgets. Paid media is a substantial investment across traditional media and, increasingly, into digital channels, which are eclipsing traditional broadcast media channels. However, with this change comes a corresponding increase in the significant issues facing marketers, media owners, and media agencies.
Much of the media industry appears more interested in deciding who the best agency /sales team /advertiser is, with endless award shows, presentations, and conferences designed to recognise the various players.
However, the industry faces challenges and issues driven by technology, the economy, and the category’s increased complexity.
Previously, we had organised “The State of the Media Industry” survey to garner the opinions of all parties, including advertisers, media agencies, and media owners, including their sales teams, to prioritise the issues and solutions. But it was increasingly frustrating that many of the existing issues facing remained while new ones were added to the list, with little resolution in sight.
Therefore, we have created this list of the biggest media advertising industry issues.
What are the big issues facing the industry?
The list is categorised into six categories of issues:
- Media Agency Relationships
- Media Strategy
- Media Trading
- Media Measurement
- Media Reporting
- Digital and Data
We acknowledge this is not a definitive list. We also acknowledge it is a dynamic list. Therefore, we invite you the industry to review this list on a regular basis, bookmark it if you will, and provide feedback on what issues are on the list, what new ones need to be added and how existing issues are evolving.
We hope this becomes a place where those of us who love media and share, discuss, argue and solve the big issues facing the media industry.
Media Agency Relationship
- Remuneration vs Commission vs Hybrid
Which remuneration model is right for me? Which model gives me the greatest control? Which model will provide me with the lowest fee but ensure I get an adequate team and a high-quality service?
- Performance Bonus/ PBR Scheme
Should I include a performance bonus scheme? If so, what level of upside and sacrifice should be included? How do I establish targets? How do I measure performance? How frequently do I pay bonuses?
- Transparency/ Undisclosed commissions
How important is it to have complete transparency of the fee/ revenue taken by my media agency? Will I audit the accounts? How answerable am I internally to this? Do the benefits of ‘non-transparency’ outweigh the additional cost of full transparency? What is most important for me to get from my media agency relationship?
- Roster Alignment
How will my media partner fit in with my other marketing service suppliers, particularly my Creative agency/ content provider? What do I need to check when appointing an agency? What do I need to do to establish a ‘modus operandi’ and manage my campaigns on an ongoing basis?
- PESO management
Are my activities currently coordinated across all customer contacts within the Paid, Earned, Shared, and Owned framework? How is this being achieved? Or why is this not being achieved? Whose responsibility is it to manage this? Are activities just being coordinated rather than integrated to increase overall value and effect?
- Performance Assessment
What mechanisms are in place to assess how well my agency partner delivers value in campaign delivery? Do I need external independent expert advice and benchmarking services? Am I tracking performance across time to ensure continual improvement? Are campaign learnings being used to optimal effect?
- Relationship Management
How important is a cordial relationship relative to performance assessment? How do I measure the relationship? How do I ensure a cordial relationship links to improved performance? What do I need to change?
- Staff churn
How good/bad is the staff churn on my business? Am I losing critical people too quickly? How long does it take to educate new personnel on the vagaries of my business? Is the rate unacceptable and could the agency be doing more to manage this? Is my business being prioritised or taken for granted?
- Contracts
How recently did I develop my contract template? Is it robust in all the new areas of concern in digital – data security, data usage, data privacy? What level of access does the agency have to first party data? Are there adequate clauses around the agency’s responsibilities & liabilities? How well are rebates & commissions covered?
- Processes
Have I established robust processes for campaign development that optimise the use of my teams time and the agency’s time? Are these documented and understood? Am I providing high quality campaign briefs and adequate timelines for planning and buying? Does this process fully engage with creative development?
- Structure
Am I structured in a silo-based way which renders it difficult for the agency to service my business efficiently? Do I coordinate my marketing requirements of the agency to ensure all my activities are staggered as much as is possible? Can I provide any additional management to get greater value from my media agency partner?
- Maintaining control
I provide the funds for the activity. Do I feel I have sufficient control on marketing outcomes and the performance of activities? Is my media agency partner driving media selection and usage to questionable effect in environments that don’t always make sense to me? What can I do to be more engaged in media usage decisions?
Strategy
- Knowing what works/ audience triggers
How robust are the feedback mechanisms that tell me which media work and which don’t? Does this give me the specifics of what works best within medium? Am I able to identify the audience triggers that generate a response?
- Market mix modelling
Should I engage with Market Mix Modelling? What additional learnings has it the potential to deliver? If I do engage, how will I select the best model to adopt? Are independent models preferable to the option available through my media agency partner?
- Audience systems vs MMM
How much benefit do I derive from my MMM partner compared to the Media Agency’s black box of tools? How do these two work best together? When conflicting stories emerge, which is more dependable?
- Audiences within audiences
How granular should my audiences be defined? Do I have reliable enough insights to go this granular? How focussed is my target audience in delivering sales? How do I ensure my activity embraces the full range of audience sales potential whilst limiting wastage?
- Integration across PESO
How well connected are my media activities to all other elements of marketing points and points of customer contact? Are they coordinated and beyond this are they integrated to provide enhanced presence and effect with my target audience?
- Requirement for Cut through/ Attention
How important is it for me to command the attention of the target audience? Is the activity a more complex branding message that requires attention or a simple reminder of a well-established product acceptable to the target?
- ‘Punching above my weight’
How do I ensure my activity cuts through? Most advertising categories are congested, and the most cost-efficient environments for activity are often well established. How do I stand out in these environments and identify alternative environments with great clear space?
- Efficiency vs Effectiveness
Efficiency is reaching my audience in a cost-efficient manner. Effectiveness is being in environments that work. Media environments don’t always deliver both. One without the other isn’t ideal. Have I got the balance right between the 2?
- How to harness AI
Have I embraced the learnings of the full range of tools available? How valuable is AI in determining where, when and how I should advertise? If AI directs me to where my category competitors advertise, how effective will my activity perform amongst the category clutter?
- How to balance AI with human thought
AI can accurately advise me of where the category efficiency and effective opportunities are. How important is it for me to use human ingenuity and strategic skills to find new and different places to advertise?
- Content customisation/ Optimisation
Audiences and sub-sets of audiences can be more precisely identified than ever before. How much additional impact and value can be derived from content customisation specific to the audience reached?
Trading
- Principal-based Trading/ Transparency
Is my media agency partner operating ‘non-disclosed’ Principal-Based Trading? Am I OK with them earning additional commissions without disclosing them to me? Do I trust the agency to deliver an equitable proportion of the added value derived back to me? Will ‘non-disclosure’ of rates and the fees taken by the agency be acceptable to my purchasing/ procurement team?
- Validation of ‘Nondisclosed’ rates
Are the rates received through ‘Non disclosed’ trading significantly better than those through transparent trading? Is my activity being conducted in the right environments? Am I convinced that the price advantage derived isn’t at the expense of quality?
- Power of the Tech Giants
How integral to my activity are Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, and TikTok? Am I sufficiently invested in their products, or am I overinvested in their products? How do I know? How reliable is the data and information coming out from behind the Walled Gardens? Have I got the right support and mechanisms in place to make these judgements? If dealing directly, how do I control the prices I pay to ensure value?
- Programmatic supply chain wastage
Is supply chain waste a fact of life when using the Internet? Am I limiting supply chain wastage by limiting and carefully using the Open web where it is most prevalent?
- Dwindling linear TV audiences
Where is the value still to be found in linear TV? How important is a presence in live TV? Beyond the numbers, is there a difference in the effectiveness achieved on Linear TV versus BVOD? What are the implications of this for placement and usage?
- Cross-screen optimisation/ measurement
Can I look at Cross-Screen reach, frequency, and optimisation? If so, how can I use this information to deliver reach more efficiently and minimise excessive frequency?
- False security of low CPM’s – digital
CPM’s are an important but overused currency. Do I fully understand the relationship between CPM and key performance metrics across the range of media deployed?
- Frequency capping
At what point does wastage kick in or is a continuous presence at frequency effective (and affordable)? How do I put parameters around activity to ensure that I’m not wasting money? How do I extend this principle into added value to ensure I don’t deliver high volumes of free activity that has no benefit and could potentially annoy consumers and become counterproductive?
- Meaningful Campaign measurement
Am I post-analysing and reporting to the metrics that matter? If I am assessing multiple metrics, do I understand the interplay between them and how to balance activities to optimise the overall effect?
- Campaign management
Are my campaigns being managed diligently week to week, day to day, to ensure that learnings and insights are acted upon throughout the campaign? Am I regularly engaging with the team responsible for this optimisation to ensure it is happening? Have I made sure that my campaigns are never ‘set and forget’?
Measurement
- Ad Fraud
Do I have mechanisms to track, monitor and minimise Ad Fraud?
- Useable first-party data
How readily usable is my first-party data for targeting in advertising and media? Is attribution accurately measured?
- Agency audience pools
Should I engage with the audience data pools available through my agency partner? Are they useful and accurate in assisting me with placement? How much do they cost? If used how reliant would I become for access to historical performance? What would be the implications of changing agency? What would I potentially lose?
- Walled gardens and lack of transparency
How can I best interpret data and information from behind the walled gardens?
- The Value of Attention
Have varying levels of attention and resultant effects been captured by my measurement and performance assessment tools.
- How the funnel works
Attribution modelling is notoriously flawed. Am I getting an accurate picture of how businesses are successfully moving through the sales funnel?
- Sponsorship evaluation
Have I built in mechanisms to accurately reflect the value derived from my sponsorship activity?
- How the brand halo works for product
Does my performance assessment system accurately reflect the contribution of the brand halo across different product categories?
- Multivariable assessment
Are all variables that affect performance accounted for in my performance measurement system?
Reporting
- Relevance of media metrics
Are the metrics I am measuring most reflective of my performance? If multiple metrics are tracked and assessed, do I understand the relationship between them and how they influence each other?
- Balancing media and performance metrics
Media metrics need to be optimised to deliver most effectively against performance metrics. Have I got the two metrics working together to best effect?
- Effective dashboards
Does my dashboard provide the relevant information in a timely manner that provides visibility of performance and the capacity to swiftly adjust activities as required?
Digital & Data
- Data security
Have data security checks been conducted and protocols established with relevant suppliers across my marketing service suppliers?
- Data privacy and new privacy laws
Am I compliant with new privacy laws? How is compliance established and monitored on an ongoing basis?
- Brand safety
Are acceptable and unacceptable environments for activity established? How frequently is this checked and validated?
- ‘In housing’ – benefits vs cost/ risk
Have I thoroughly investigated the benefits of ‘in housing’? Do the benefits outweigh the risks, and does this give me greater control over the marketing area?
Have your say
Here is where you get to participate in this discussion, but providing your feedback either anonymously or providing an email address so we can engage you further. Simply complete the form below to submit your thoughts, suggestions, ideas and feedback on the big issues facing the media industry.
You can read more on our approach to defining and measuring media value, or contact us to confidentially discuss you particular media needs and challenges.