Media Agencies Need to Regain Advertisers' Trust

There are so many things going on that need not a kneejerk sound bite but a professional informed and clear point of view to help advertisers plot their way through the messI never see media agency leaders in the national press on mainstream TV even on broad business sites Maybe I consume the wrong thingsOther disciplines seem to do this rather better You canamp8217t move for planners futurologists trade body leaders even bloggers and podcasters popping up here and there but with so many of todayamp8217s hot topics being to do with how and where money is spent the absence of our top agenciesamp8217 bosses is noticeableWhen the mighty do come down to walk amongst us they rarely stray far from their comfort zoneMost interviews with media agency CEOs are sycophantic managed by inhouse PRs and donamp8217t deviate from speaking about the general wonderfulness of their agency Frankly beyond their own staff itamp8217s hard to know who cares Still as long as the agency enters the awards run by the trades and takes ad space in those yearend egomassaging lists whatamp8217s the harmThis never used to be the extent of agency comment Here I go again Maybe todayamp8217s cohort are just more fearful of their corporate bosses or of daring to criticize the massive vendors in which case thatamp8217s rather sadWhat does the media agency community think of whatamp8217s happening at Twitter In this particular case we do sortof have an idea AdAge reported that WPP was considering using Twitter againTen years ago WPP announced a partnership with Twitter quotA global strategic partnership that will greatly expand collaboration between the two organizations Covering data and analytics amp8230 the agreement spans several WPP units amp8211 including GroupM amp8230 and amp8230 KantarquotSurely it would be worth asking GroupM or Kantar Media with unique access to all that data to comment on the impact the current ownership is having on the platformMaybe the quotglobal strategic partnershipquot was shortlivedSometimes agency leaders do break cover to comment on what they see as the issues of the momentOne senior media agency figure was attracting attention the other day from the smartyarse brigade of which Iamp8217m a fully paidup member for boasting on LinkedIn that an ad she had placed had reached quot13bn impressions today alone And weamp8217re not done yet amp8230quotAs Dr Augustine Fou commented quotHow was the 13bn impressions achieved in ONE DAYquot I am sure Dr Fou has a pretty good ideaWhat good does it do to quote fake numbers to your client let alone boast about such meaningless dross in public If you feel the urge why not instead comment on the need to clean up the data emerging from behind walled gardensOr if youamp8217re felling strong what about the goings on at Fox News and the implications for advertisersOr whether the Lineker affair here has brought the commercialization of the BBC closer and if so what are the implications for the current commercial media landscapeOr should advertisers worry about the context in which their ads appear Does it matter if they are accused of fuelling hate Or should advertising and editorial retain their distance even onlineOr why should advertisers advertise on social media at all After all the editorial freeforalls on Facebook Twitter YouTube TikTok and the rest are often scary places for a brand to venture And even when they do go there noone likes the ads even if they notice them which often they donamp8217tThese are nuanced and difficult topics amp8211 which is why the opinions of those who are paid to advise their clients on anything and everything to do with the media world are potentially so valuableAdvertisers are often criticized by their agencies for only caring about the numbers about procurement about auditors This is inevitable if the agencies don39t give them any other means to judge themMedia agencies need to regain advertisers39 trust One way to do that is to be seen to add value amp8211 real value amp8211 to the businessYes but 13bn impressions Smirks You can39t argue with the numbersEven if theyamp8217re madeup unverifiable full of fraud and nothing to do with business successIt39s really rather patheticSelfpublished at MediaVillage through the wwwAvrioB2Bcom platformClick the social buttons to share this story with colleagues and friendsThe opinions expressed here are the author39s views and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaVillagecomMyersBizNet

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Media Agencies Need to Regain Advertisers' Trust

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Brian Jacobs

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Media Agencies Need to Regain Advertisers' Trust

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