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AT THE HEART OF INTERNATIONAL ADVERTISING

FREE THOUGHT

Fighting

to keep fit

WRITeR

WRITeR

Martina Lacey

CReATIve

Shutterstock

»

‘TOPIC‘

Many a media owner would be forgiven for wanting to forget the troughs of 2009, but last year also offered plenty of opportunities for the industry to really prove its worth. M&M’s annual sales team benchmarking survey examines how companies have spread diminishing budgets for better ROI

It goes without saying that media owners found their working climate difficult in 2009. Compared to their agency and advertiser counterparts, they were the most pessimistic in evaluating how much the economic downturn had affected their work over the past six months. A huge 70% felt they had been considerably compromised, compared to 62% of agencies and only 47% of advertisers, perhaps reflecting the power of the food chain.

Media owners and agencies were equally affected by cost-cutting within their own companies, and at the companies with which they worked. In terms of hard impact though, fewer media owners (41%) reported a decrease in staffing numbers over the past 12 months than agencies (48%). Original headcount will have much to do with it, but the upshot of this will have only increased the expectation on suppliers.

WHAT DID MEDIA OWNERS NEED TO DELIVER AGAINST?

Unsurprisingly, the biggest priority for agencies when selecting which platform to use was the media owner’s ability to prove return on investment. Nearly half the respondents ranked it first, while offering a creative and flexible approach came a clear second. Other issues – professionalism, good research resources, multi-platform capabilities

24 M&MQ1 2010

and technological developments – saw a more mixed response. The online sales teams swept the

board when it came to the ability to prove ROI with Google coming out best overall. Its rating of 60%, together with its dominance of the online world, helped account for it being the most popular (or certainly the most used) media owner included in the survey. Print players also delivered well on the ROI front, with The Economist ranked second overall. Perhaps this can be attributed to the investment most have made in this category to boost multi-platform offerings. Along with

The Economist, the Financial Times and

Newsweek also dedicated investment to their digital offerings, which resulted in higher scores for them. Digital investment is yet to bring the same fortune to the OOH sector. All the players failed to register double digits on their ability to deliver ROI, although recent announcements regarding measurement initiatives from both the US and Australia suggest that the sector is all too aware it needs to up its game. The heightened importance of ROI

shows very little sign of declining over the next 12 months with the majority of respondents agreeing with the statement that “cost-effectiveness is my top priority, but I expect to give more importance to creativity in 2010.” Only

National Geographic Magazine,Wallpaper

and JCDecaux with them all pulling in

ratings around the 50% mark.

In comparison, OOH

again missed the mark in terms of offering a creative and flexible approach, with the exception of JCDecaux which led the sector with 51%. Clear Channel, CBS Outdoor and Ströer trailed with ratings of 36%, 31% and 29%, respectively.

5% described creativity as their top priority.

DID MEDIA OWNERS DELIVER MORE CREATIVE THINKING?

As recession descended, media owners and agencies alike declared that smaller budgets would produce more creative thinking. Historically, some of the biggest ideas have been born during recession – take Apple for one. By all accounts, the Tv, print and online players delivered in the creativity space with National Geographic’s Tv sales team being crowned the most creative across all the platforms. The spot for second most creative sales team was neck and neck between MSN,

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ADSPEND

Radio

4.0%

OOH

8.3%

Other

11.8%

Print

21.8%

Online

22.5%

Cinema 0.9% Mobile 1.6%

The differing of opinion between media owners and agencies on increased creativity during 2009 yet

Source: Xxxxxxxxxx

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“Branded

content is now the star of the toolbox, taking nearly 25% of the budget relative to traditional advertising”

again signalled the separate paths that these two often seem to be walking. When rating themselves,

more than 60% of media owners said that they had been more creative over the past year. However, the number dropped to a lowly

36% when agencies were asked if media owners had upped their

game in the creativity space – 11% said they did not consider media owners to be creative at all.

While 60% of media owners claimed

to have a dedicated creative solutions department, only 19% of agencies felt this was very important. Saying that, only 5% said that it carried no importance at all. Branded content has turned out to be the star of the media owner’s toolbox as it becomes better established. More than 80% of media owners offered capabilities in this area, and nearly the same number of advertisers took them up on the offer. In terms of spend, branded content is now taking nearly 25% of the budget relative to traditional advertising (spots and banners). Online was the most popular platform for branded content with it being used by 62% of respondents, followed by Tv at 44% and print 37%. The popularity of branded content

varied across the regions. Respondents in the UK and on the continent lagged behind the rest of the world in terms of usage, which can be attributed to the tighter restrictions around it. Mobile, however, is still to show its

full potential. Nearly 70% of advertisers and media owners revealed that

THE TOP ONLINE AND OOH SALES TEAMS

RATED AGAINST SIX CRITERIA

Attributes

ROI

MSN

»

FREE THOUGHT

An opportunity or compromise?

Is pan-regional media right for the

personality of emerging markets?

China

“Pan-regional media owners were the first to develop integrated solutions across different platforms, but local media owners are fast diversifying their offers and developing strategic alliances across the region.”

Connie Chan,

managing director, MEC Singapore

India

“A pan-regional team would not be effective. For most advertisers, India is a focus market and they do not want to compromise it for some advantage in, say, Singapore or Sri Lanka.”

Sam Balsara, chairman and

managing director, Madison World

Russia

“Pan-regional media is like an all you can eat buffet. It seems like a good idea but the quality is rarely good. It is more cost-effective to buy locally as the ratings and research are robust.”

Gareth Brown, ADV client service director, Initiative Russia

Ghana

“Data is underdeveloped; it’s hard to say how many people watch a particular programme and difficult to know if you’re getting what you paid for, so local knowledge is critical.”

Kofi Amoo-Gottfried,

managing director, Publicis Ghana

THE TOP TV AND PRINT SALES TEAMS

Online OOH

Google Ströer

Multi-platform Yahoo!/ CBS Outdoor solutions

New media MSN JCDecaux & technology

Professional Yahoo!/ Ströer MSN

Creative Research

TV 29.1%

MSN JCDecaux

MSN Clear Channel

Source: Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

RATED AGAINST SIX CRITERIA

Attributes

ROI

X CRI

TV

orld N V

Multi-platform Euronews

solutions

New media MTV & technology

Professional Creative

Research CNN National

eographic

Source: Xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

M&MQ1 2010 25

Print

BBC Economist World News

FT/WSJ/

Economist WSJ

Time Nat Geo/

Geo/

Geographic Wallpaper CNN

Economist

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