Featuring:

Melissa Parrish, Vice President, Research Director

Show notes:

The media market is under duress. Along with the disruption driven firstly by digital and then mobile, the market is also under pressure from forces more basic and, in a frustrating way, external.

The basic forces are those that have been on the docket for a while: transparency, traceable fees, and clear ROI. One can argue that media can address these dynamics within the current market and operating models. It may take a chunk out of margins and some ne’er-do-wells out of the market, but media can run the same playbook to address these forces.

The more challenging ones are external in nature:

  1. The real impact of customers demanding more from their entertainment, information, and digital experiences.
  2. The competitive fallout of management consultants buying agencies to help marketers take more control of their media operations.
  3. The outsized impact of Amazon and Alexa on product awareness and discovery and eCommerce.
  4. Regulations like GDPR and ePrivacy that will directly attack the murky world of trading customer data as market currency.

The net result is that advertising will need to go back to — and perfect — the basics: focusing on the distinctive and powerful force of creativity, honing the ability to deliver digital experiences that don’t drive customers to avoid ads, and playing a differentiated role in helping shape marketers’ digital (read: programmatic) and media strategies.

In this episode, Melissa Parrish talks through the conspiracy of forces that are organic and new to the media market — and how agencies can address market headwinds that will certainly reshape the market.