Last week our CEO and Co-founder, Martin Kelly, wrote an article for ISBA, titled Are we heading for Mediapalooza 2.0? It was published as part of the UK advertising association's New Normal series, which brings together the views of media leaders on how the pandemic will impact the advertising world.
In the article, Martin talks about the recent increase in media pitch activity and draws a parallel with the Mediapalooza phenomenon of 2015. Back then advertisers were meant to “instigate major change in the advertiser-media agency relationship”, but as Martin points out, all that happened in the end was “most models stayed roughly the same and business merely shuffled round to the next agency.”
In the article Martin predicts in 2020 the Mediapalooza will be different, as it will be all about the operating model. He goes on to talk about how this is down to both, digital advertising becoming central to the media mix, and Covid providing the impetus to get advertisers to change.
Martin then walks through the three forces behind the trend:
1. Digital acceleration
Covid has driven 2-3 years of digital transformation in the last 2-3 months, and advertisers need to catch up
2. The world’s largest incrementality test
With all advertising turned off, advertisers got the chance to see what was actually driving business.
3. Time spent on the big picture
Marketers have been given the gift of time, and they are using it to move their thinking on.
The article concludes with the prediction that, with 5 years to learn the importance of getting digital media under control, advertisers will get the model right this time.
Read the full article here.