By The Media Leader
The Media Leader is the leading source of analysis, data, opinion and trends in commercial media and advertising.
Hosted by editor-in-chief Omar Oakes and reporter Jack Benjamin, we
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The podcast currently has 141 episodes available.
Omar Oakes and Jack Benjamin review the big stories in UK media and advertising this week, including Amazon's UK upfronts, in which it revealed new ad formats for Prime Video, and Pinterest, whose lead marketer had some strong words to say about the digital media "duopoly".
Omar is also joined by Wacl's president Karen Stacey and vice-president Claire Sadler to talk about why the female leaders' network is looking for new partners and ways of raising money.
Highlights:
01:00: Amazon's UK upfronts, Prime Video audience numbers and new ad formats
09:05: Pinterest Presents – what the platform had to say at its annual advertising summit
16:00: Why Observer journalists are unhappy about selling to Tortoise
19:15: Elon Musk's X is valued at less than a quarter of the $44bn he paid to buy Twitter – fair price?
21:00: Immediate Media has launched Prism, a full-scale first-party data solution
28:30: Reuters and CNN to introduce metered website paywalls. Will bundles follow?
32:10: Interview: Karen Stacey and Claire Sadler
Related articles:
Amazon Prime Video now reaches 19m in the UK
Pinterest eyes performance budgets as it takes on Big Tech
Immediate Media launches Prism first-party data solution
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Jack Benjamin and Omar Oakes report highlights from The Media Leader's first outing in Manchester!
The Future of Media Manchester attracted around 600 people on 26 September and included ITV and Coronation Street's "big sell", Manchester City FC's fledgling operation as an in-house production company and advertising consultancy and, of course, a special Manchester edition of "Who Wants to be a Media Leader?"
Jack and Omar discuss why there is still a big regional imbalance in UK media and advertising, with one agency boss estimating that £250m has been lost by Manchester agencies to London shops in the last three years.
There will be more reports from The Future of Media Manchester over the next few days but, in the meantime, check out the agenda for the event.
Interested in being involved next year? Email us: [email protected].
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Jack Benjamin and Omar Oakes are back to review the big media business news of the week, starting with the launch of Origin, Isba's world-first cross-media measurement tool.
It may be billed as a "beta" launch with a limited pool of 35 advertisers, but Oakes explains why "as far as Isba is concerned, Origin is now officially launched".
The Media Leader duo also discuss ITV's first-ever generative-AI ads created for small businesses, Roblox’s progression into advertising and The London Standard's decision to revive a dead art critic.
Highlights:
01:00: Isba launches beta trials for Origin with real data
12:00: Barb includes Netflix and Discovery+ in total campaign planning
20:00: Roblox creates a walled garden as it leans in to ad strategy
23:30: ITV's generative-AI ads
30:00: Why is TikTok putting up paywalls?
33:30: Perplexity woos brands with AI search offer: should Google be worried?
37:00: Why The London Standard is 'reviving' Brian Sewell through AI
Related articles:
Isba’s Origin goes live with real audience data for first time
Barb extends total campaign planning to include Netflix and Discovery+
Roblox moves to create a walled garden as it leans into ad strategy
The future of TV ads? ITV creates two spots with generative AI
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News titles across the UK are changing hands and senior leaders amid what has been a downturn in the digital advertising market. Meanwhile, challenges relating to referral traffic, anticompetitive practices by tech giants, and the continuing decline in print revenues are dogging publishers.
Owen Meredith, the CEO of the News Media Association, sat down with Jack Benjamin to discuss.
The pair spoke about the numerous headwinds facing both local and national news organisations, whether it be from adapting their business models to the digital age or addressing developments in AI and publishers’ dependency on social media companies for traffic.
Meredith additionally revealed the NMA’s priorities for working with the new Labour government, including on improving fair competition with Big Tech in the digital ecosystem.
“News publishers have never directly reached into the minds or the hands of readers," he said. "They’ve always been intermediaries. That’s something we’re used to deal with. We’re just not used to dealing with intermediaries on take-it-or-leave-it terms and who can make a tweak to an algorithm and suddenly see your traffic switch off overnight.”
Highlights:
4:26: Working with the new Labour government to promote better online competition.
11:14: News publishers need to adapt their business models.
13:12: Is the BBC creating competition issues?
15:08: Reactions to Observer, Telegraph, and Spectator sales.
16:37: Is local news sustainable as we know it?
20:48: Addressing issues of trust and ownership transparency.
25:36: What keeps Meredith up at night? AI, Google monopoly, and co-dependency on social media.
Related articles:
Reach CEO: Sun and Mail are our allies in ‘battle for survival’
Tom Hunt appointed editor-in-chief of Express
Guardian ad revenue plunges as it plans Observer sale
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Thanks to our production partners Trisonic for editing this episode.
--> Discover how Trisonic can elevate your brand and expand your business by connecting with your ideal audience
Visit The Media Leader for the most authoritative news analysis and comment on what's happening in commercial media.
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Jack Benjamin and Omar Oakes discuss the major stories of the past week, including the proposed sale of The Observer to Tortoise Media, scenes from recent Radiocentre, Thinkbox and Who Cares? events, and product updates from Meta and Snap.
Highlights:
1:04: Guardian Media Group shares earnings and considers sale of The Observer to Tortoise
12:35: Takeaways from Radiocentre's Tuning In conference
15:53: Broadcasters express concerns over Isba's use of Barb data in Origin
19:18: Who cares about Who Cares?
22:32: Instagram's changes for teens and the age-verification problem
26:54: Snap's new Spectacles and the appeal of smart glasses
31:29: Programmatic DOOH market growth
Related links:
Guardian ad revenue plunges as it plans Observer sale
Commercial radio revenue grows 5% in H1
Who cares about advertising? Those who are willing to say ‘no’
ITV warns advertisers over Isba plan to launch Origin without Barb
Programmatic DOOH grows as advertisers move budget from other channels
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Social media gets a lot of buzz and an increasingly large slice of media budgets. But is that spend optimal compared with other media channels?
In an article for The Media Leader last week, EssenceMediacom's chief strategy officer Richard Kirk revealed new research that suggests brands are spending three times as much on paid social than is most efficient.
Kirk and Olga Zaitseva, EssenceMediacom's head of media science and modelling, join Jack Benjamin to unpack the findings.
According to the pair, paid social receives more attention from marketers than is strictly necessary, and if AV budgets were increased, campaign effectiveness would likely improve.
"We're starting to see multiple pieces of research all pointing in quite a specific direction," says Kirk. "And I would hope that those things combined start to lend real credence to this idea that maybe the industry has gone too far in one direction and needs to correct."
Highlights:
1:09: How surprising are EssenceMediacom's findings?
5:00: Reasons brands are overspending on social media
18:46: Caveats: different results for SMBs, production budgets
23:14: AV channels are underinvested. A look at other media channels
30:20: How research should be communicated to CMOs and CFOs
Related articles:
Brands could be spending three times too much on social. You read that right
Advertising generates profit, but not all media channels are equal
Thinkbox's Media Mix Navigator tool, which uses the same data as the EssenceMediacom study, can be accessed for free here. It provides econometric data for 2021-2023 from 141 brands across 14 product categories and 10 media channels, enabling advertisers to explore the impact of budget allocations on revenue and return on investment.
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Jack Benjamin and Omar Oakes discuss the major stories of recent weeks following a brief summer hiatus. Key stories include Google's second antitrust case in the US this year, Sir Paul Marshall's purchase of The Spectator and the dissolution of EssenceMediacomX.
Highlights:
1:32: What to know about Google's adtech antitrust trial
11:56: The Spectator sale – what's Sir Paul Marshall's aim?
15:46: X's lack of appeal to mainstream advertisers
17:49: EssenceMediacomX dissolves
19:13: TV no longer the top place for news
21:56: News Corp's activist investor
23:30: August box office boom
25:28: The importance of the TfL account to Global and JCDecaux
Related links:
CMA suggests Google has abused dominant positions in adtech
EssenceMediacomX is no more
Marketers’ trust in ads on X drops to historic low
TfL reappoints Global and JCDecaux
August box office tops £120m as summer ends on high note
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Terry Hornsby, founder and executive vice-president of Mantis, joins Jack Benjamin to discuss how keyword blocklists remain in use by advertisers to the detriment of publishers.
Hornsby explains that blocklisting is being used irresponsibly by too many advertisers, many of which often add words to their blocklists without sufficiently checking which may be worth taking off.
These could include adding "Paris" after the 2015 terrorist attacks or "Taylor Swift" after her Vienna concert was nearly attacked, and then never remembering to take these keywords off.
The result? Publishers having much of their brand-safe work demonitised.
Hornsby also discusses why this keeps occurring and what needs to change for publishers to earn revenue on articles that brands would in fact want to advertise against.
This episode was recorded earlier this summer, before the Paris Olympic Games began.
Highlights
2:00: Why Hornsby founded Mantis
5:12: The problem with keyword-blocking
11:38: Are brands being too cautious?
19:54: The importance of contextual advertising regardless of the future of the cookie
26:41: Other brand-safety verification vendors
29:23: What needs to change?
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Thanks to our production partners Trisonic for editing this episode.
--> Discover how Trisonic can elevate your brand and expand your business by connecting with your ideal audience
Visit The Media Leader for the most authoritative news analysis and comment on what's happening in commercial media.
LinkedIn: The Media Leader
YouTube: The Media Leader
Jack Benjamin hosts a live panel where three media strategists field questions about common challenges in advertising.
Speakers:
Jackie Lyons, chief planning officer, Havas Media Network UK
Raj Mahon, director of client partnerships, MiQ
Amy Caven, head of media and strategy planning, Boots
This was recorded at our Future of Brands event in April. You can watch it on the Adwanted UK YouTube channel here.
Do you like this AMA format? Let the editor know what you think: [email protected]
More from Jackie in a previous episode: The Future of Marketing – episode 2
The podcast is about to take a short summer break before returning in September.
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Sue Unerman, global chief strategy officer at Brainlabs, joins Omar Oakes to discuss leaving WPP's EssenceMediacom after 34 years and "reinventing" herself at a very different agency.
Unerman is well-known across the industry and beyond as a progressive thinker and media strategist, thanks to the books she has written as an author about workplace culture and inclusion.
She is a Cannes Lions Creativity for Good winner and 2024 Glass Lions judge, a fellow of the IPA and has co-authored three bestselling books: Belonging, The Glass Wall and Tell the Truth. A fourth book, A Year of Creativity, is due to be released next month.
Highlights
Unerman on… AI: "Businesses that are built on AI, rather than businesses that are kind of importing AI as a last-minute thing, are going to have some advantages."
Unerman on… strategy: "What has changed is the ability to gather signals and understanding and intelligence about the right time, the right place, the right message, the right person, has gone up exponentially, and finding a way to digest and see the signals in all of that data and all of that noise. That's the task of the strategist."
Unerman on… her new book: "There has been a lot more promotion of both people and techniques that fall within the left-brain bucket, the analytical bucket. And the right-brain techniques and ideas around creativity tend to get a bit squashed by left-brain thinkers."
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Thanks to our production partners Trisonic for editing this episode.
--> Discover how Trisonic can elevate your brand and expand your business by connecting with your ideal audience
Visit The Media Leader for the most authoritative news analysis and comment on what's happening in commercial media.
LinkedIn: The Media Leader
YouTube: The Media Leader
The podcast currently has 141 episodes available.