#MediaSnack

In this weeks #MediaSnack Tom Denford is joined by Matt Green, Senior Manager Media and Digital Marketing (a.k.a. "the voice of global media") at the global marketer trade body the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA). They discuss the role and membership of WFA, which includes global brand companies like P&G, Unilever, L'Oreal, Nestle and many others with a global marketing spend of over US$700bn. The WFA represents around 60 national marketing trade associations across the world and is the voice of marketers worldwide, representing 90% of global marketing communications spend – through a unique, global network. The WFA champions responsible and effective marketing communications worldwide.In the first part of the episode Tom and Matt discuss WFA’s most recent initiative - 'WFA's Compendium of Ad Fraud Knowledge for Media Investors'. The document identifies clear actions to enable brands to reduce their exposure to ad fraud in four key areas: Standards, People & Technology, Education & Communication, and Governance. In the second part of the episode Tom and Matt discuss WFA's perspective on the ANA's report into US media rebate practice, called “An Independent Study of Media Transparency in the US Advertising Industry” and written by K2 Intelligence. For information about the report watch #MediaSnack Episode 28. In Matt’s word’s the ANA report contains a lot of constructive comments and is a helpful step forward for their marketer members. He says "we endorse the document completely". Matt Green of WFA believes that the ANA media Rebate Report (#RebateGate) will be a "catalyst for behaviour change" on the client side because some client behaviours may have "provoked the transparency problem". Finally, they discuss WFA's most recent member’s survey on media transformation which highlights that Talent is becoming one of the biggest concerns amongst WFA members and how important it is to ensure that they have the right resources and capabilities to face the future. This month ID Comms completed the ID Comms 2016 Global Media Talent Survey, that will be published in the next couple of weeks and will feature on future episodes of #MediaSnack. 

On this week’s #MediaSnack there is a nice theme of 'disruption' which weaves through the episode. We start with Tom sharing his observations and learnings from attending a marketer event last week in New York. Tom was invited to sit on a panel organised by The Internationalist and the Association of National Advertisers under the theme “Setting the Global Marketing Agenda”. The day started with a fireside chat with Brad Jakeman, President of PepsiCo beverages who pulls no punches when talking about marketers need to disrupt their own businesses and his frustration at agencies for not evolving and innovating as fast as marketers need them to. The panels followed, on the theme “The Reinvention of Client Agency Relationships” and alongside Tom featured the very impressive Andy Markowitz from GE Performance Marketing Labs, Rob Rakowitz from Mars and Dan Vihn from Marriott. Next we discuss the phenomenon of the US presidential race currently well underway. Typically the candidates with the most media budgets will be most successful, almost all previous victorious candidates going on to be president have spent the most money on campaign advertising. However this year, Donald Trump has turned the model on its head and disrupted the normal rules. He’s done this by understanding the power of earned media, to date estimated at nearly $2bn in value, having spent only $10m which is just a fraction of what some of the other (less successful) candidates have spent. #Trump has dominated media coverage, perhaps being intentionally provocative in order to do so, and sucked the air out of his competitors' bid for exposure. Forcing them to spend even more aggressively to counter his dominance of the airwaves. So far the strategy seems to be working well for him. Finally we bring news of a new agency shortly launching in London. #VaynerMedia are opening their London office, their first outside the US, in July. Tom met with the Vayner team in New York last week to discuss their plans and learn more about their innovative agency model. Look out for a special #MediaSnack next week featuring VaynerMedia founder Gary Vaynerchuck, host of the #AskGaryVee YouTube show, which has clearly been closely modelled on ID Comms #MediaSnack ;) 

"Media is ultimately a value-add to any business...the big challenge across media practice is how to communicate and show value against our core business outcomes..."

My guest for this great #MediaSnack Meets episode, is Brett Richardson, Chobani's Senior Media and Marketing Manager

#Chobani really has an interesting marketing and media model. The company is hugely data-savvy and always looking for innovation. They have become a case study for enhancing their strong internal media capabilities with great external agency talent. One to watch. 

Find out:
- What is Brett's role at Chobani and what is he most proud of professionally?
- What does he see are the industry's biggest challenges and how we might address them?
- What does he do to unwind and recharge?
- Plus Brett's best industry leadership tips

On this week's #MediaSnack we review news that P&G have hired a new global media director, pinching the impressive Gerry D’Angelo from Mondelez to lead their global $7.2bn media operations. Media is a massive business driver for P&G, it accounts for over 10% of their total global sales, so they need it to work hard. As media gets more complicated and agency relationships get fragmented and more delicate, it requires strong visionary leadership and Gerry is the right guy for P&G. Interesting timing as P&G recently moved their US business into Omnicom “startup” Hearts & Science. Maybe coincidental timing Hearts & Science have announced the launch of a UK agency at the same time that P&G are “reviewing their UK media agency requirements”. Lets see....ID Comms announce the launch of a Global Survey looking into Media Training, something which the ANA highlighted this year as a big gap on the client side, they advised brands need to commit to a "media education". You can contribute to the survey here Finally, more focus on Hearts & Science as we discuss the ‘zero-margin’ deal apparently offered by Omnicom to land the US McDonald’s creative and media duties. We consider some of the implications of these kinds of deals, where they agency assumes a big commercial risk on the client's business performance. It has been reported that the agreement requires Omnicom to be accountable for their profit margin derived solely by McDonald’s business KPIs. A nice idea on paper, it is a sure-fire way to make sure your agency resources are laser-aligned with your business objectives, but it requires deep faith and trust on both the client and agency sides, who both have to be equally motivated by the same goals and have to be comfortable they can equally influence the business outcomes. It is somewhat of a gamble, but a good innovation if successful. Overseeing from the agency is Wendy Clark an ex Coca Cola executive who will be very familiar with value based payment models

Never miss your #MediaSnack - subscribe for updates every FridayOn this week’s #MediaSnack we stare into the gigantic dark abyss that is ad fraud. So often quoted in surveys as the thing that worries marketers the most, it remains a mystery and takes many guises, in fact there are over 30 types of ad fraud identified, so far. We consider the scale of the problem, which is difficult to be very precise, and ask the big question most often troubling marketers; who should actually be accountable for tackling ad fraud? We’ve seen some companies, most notably P&G, make their unhappiness with ad fraud very clear and very public. Others have taken more conservative and private approaches. This week in fact we've seen a significant milestone in answering the big question. Taxi app Uber filed a claim against their mobile agency Fetch for losses they claim were caused by ad fraud. If that goes to trial it will test in court, in a very public way and based on evidence, the true accountability of ad fraud. In some ways this represents all advertisers versus all agencies. It will be the jury find that get to review the evidence and decide if it is the advertiser or the agency who is responsible for the undeniable impact of fraudulent traffic and results.In the meantime, we can simply offer our perspective and so on #MediaSnack we look at the three main parties; the marketer, the agency/vendor and the publisher and share what specifically we think they should be doing to help combat the threat and impact of ad fraud. * Methodology for agency ad fraud content assessment:The scores were calculated by an ID Comms assessment of agency published information on ad fraud online on their main website address. Each agency researched was scored out of 25 based on ID Comms assessment criteria below. The areas investigated included accessibility of information, volume of resources and quality of resources5 part assessment criteria as follows, each graded out of 5. Is ad fraud mentioned clearly on agency website home page?Is an agency POV searchable or easy to find on website?What volume of resources are there on ad fraud?What are quality of resources on ad fraud? Ease of next steps to find out more from agencyOn this week's Good Week Bad Week we celebrate the appointment of Annette King as CEO of Publicis Groupe UK, having made a rare move from WPP to their French rivals. Meanwhile, its a bad week for Verizon's Oath we think who, after shelling out billions to pull together the collection of tarnished media assets such as Yahoo!, Tumblr and Tech Crunch launched a brand campaign aimed at advertisers which many thought was a spoof ad. It is so painfully cringeworthy it may do more harm than good. In fact, it resembles an (earlier) spoof ad so closely that it seems that Oath may have inadvertently created a spoof of a spoof ad but done so with serious intent. Is that a double negative? Perhaps its the coolest thing ever made and we are wrong... Further reading:http://www.thedrum.com/opinion/2017/09/25/why-the-fetch-and-uber-lawsuits-should-be-wake-up-call-the-ad-industryhttps://digiday.com/media/ft-warns-advertisers-discovering-ad-fraud-site/https://www.wsj.com/articles/spoofed-online-ads-irk-publishers-and-marketers-1506603602?mod=djemCMOTodayLaunch of Nameles:http://nameles.org/Good Week:http://www.thedrum.com/news/2017/09/27/ogilvy-uk-chief-annette-king-makes-shock-exit-publicis-after-18-yearsBad Week:OATH's new brand spot "Madness"https://youtu.be/t-MfMoTNY5sThe "Generic Millenial Ad"https://youtu.be/KG_i7oWzTyU

A candid conversation with WFA's Robert Rakowitz. Rob leads the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) - a never-been-done-before industry alliance that brings together global marketers, media agencies, media owner platforms and industry associations to start working together to address consumer safety and societal health in ad-supported digital media. In this role, Rob is one part community builder-leader and one part catalyst-matchmaker. Rob helps identify existing best practices and align industry leaders in creating new solutions to address this challenge through “uncommon collaboration.”

The Global Alliance for Responsible Media was formed to identify specific collaborative actions, processes and protocols for protecting consumers and brands from safety issues. Alliance members will work collaboratively to identify actions that will better protect consumers online, working towards a media environment where hate speech, bullying and disinformation is challenged, where personal data is protected, and used responsibly when given, and where everyone is, especially children, better protected online. Alliance members acknowledge their collective power to significantly improve the health of the media ecosystem.

#MediaForGrowth

#MediaSnack is brought to you by ID Comms, the award-winning growth consultancy specializing in media and advertising. Advisors to the world's most ambitious brands.

-------

Welcome to #MediaSnack, if you are new to the channel it's great to have you join us! 

#MediaSnack is a LIVE weekly show where we unpack questions you all have about media, agencies, marketing, and more.  

Please subscribe above to get alerts of all upcoming weekly episodes.
If you liked this episode please give us a thumbs up, it really helps other people like you find this channel.

What do you think about this episode? Please leave your comments down below and send us a question you’d like us to cover on a future show.

Today’s special episode of #MediaSnack is devoted to the review of the ANA’s long-awaited report into media rebate practice in the US. Following a 9 month forensic study by corporate investigations firm K2 Intelligence, the report is an alarming wake up call to a global industry riddled with speculation about bad practice on behalf of some media agencies. The report calls media rebate activity “pervasive” and that they have evidence that agencies "across the spectrum” have been involved.We take a look at the report findings, consider the implications on the wider industry and discuss what should a media director be thinking right now after reviewing the reportBefore the report was widely released, we were invited to join a briefing call hosted by the ANA and K2 Intelligence for interested parties and journalists, on the call ANA President and CEO Bob Lionise stated clearly that “the media business is not transparent”. K2 then spent 20 minutes detailing the executive summary of findings and opened up to Q&A. We understand that the accompanying guidelines being drawn up by US media auditors Ebiquity will follow in a couple of weeks.There have been very robust responses from the large media agency groups questioning the integrity of the ANA’s approach and K2’s report. This has included an accusation from Publicis Groupe that the report has “diminished and maligned" the industry. Clearly battle-lines are being drawn and this is probably just the start of a bigger fall out between marketer and agency. Look out this week for The ID Comms “Post-K2 Media Manifesto” offering some initial practical guidance for marketers feeling exposed and unsure of how to react to the report findings. 

On this week's #MediaSnack we begin a countdown to the one year anniversary of the Media Transparency Report published by the Association of National Advertisers on 7th June 2016. So across the coming weeks on #MediaSnack we will look into some areas that we think have shown significant changes in the 12 months since that report. First up we look at MEDIA TRANSPARENCY and bring news of a session which Tom Denford hosted at the Festival of Media in Rome on 9th May with Gerry D'Angelo, the recently appointed Global Media Director of P&G, the world's largest advertiser. Tom shares details of his fireside chat with Gerry and notes that this Q&A is a continuation of the narrative started by P&G's Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard in a series of keynote speeches on Media Transparency earlier this year. Also discussed within the theme of MEDIA TRANSPARENCY is news that Vivendi has bid to acquire a controlling stake (60%) of the Havas Group which has raised some eyebrows and concern over whether a major content business (selling advertising inventory) should also own a media buying business which perhaps should be acting wholly neutrally and objectively from the supply side. Is this a conflict of interest and to what extent will the new Vivendi owned Havas Group need to reassure the market of their integrity? We expect this will lead to a big play on media transparency from Havas to position this deal as a positive one for advertisers.

If you are a Media Director, what's the SINGLE critical priority for your attention in Q1?

Heading into a new year there are always lots of things demanding the limited attention of the Media Director; budget allocations, KPIs, measurement, internal team goals, process improvements, innovation, ad fraud, am I going to the Superbowl...?

On today's #MediaSnack we unpack some of the critical areas of focus and share with you what we believe is the NUMBER ONE PRIORITY for your attention in Q1, to set up for a successful year ahead.

Don't hesitate or you risk losing your competitive advantage. Remember, "the squeaky wheel gets the oil and the early bird gets the worm"

If you are an agency, watch to learn more and be on alert that this question is coming...

#MediaForGrowth

#MediaSnack is brought to you by ID Comms, the award-winning growth consultancy specializing in media and advertising. Advisors to the world's most ambitious brands.