Creative agencies more to blame for holding back spend on new media, says Mondelez marketer Pete Mitchell
Creative agencies are more responsible than media agencies for being slow to spend on popular new media platforms, the head of media innovation at Mondelez International said last night.
In answer to a question from Mumbrella on whether spend in newer channels such as online and mobile was being curbed because agencies make larger margins on traditional media, Pete Mitchell, the Singapore-based global media innovation director at the snacks giant said that there was “some truth” in this notion.
“We still live off a legacy that is aligned to what we do through TV and print production,” Mitchell said at the I am Wednesday in Singapore.
Mitchell, who has spent all of his career agency-side with the likes of Neo@Ogilvy, IPG Mediabrands and Mindshare until last year, went on to say that media agencies were less to blame than their creative cousins for marketing spend not keeping up with where consumers are spending their time.
In Singapore, the world’s most advanced smartphone market, where smart mobile device penetration is well over 100 per cent, still only a small percentage of marketing spend goes on any kind of digital media. The IAB hopes to has a target for 20 per cent of total marketing spend in Southeast Asia to be online within five years.
“If there is an issue of more money being made [by agencies] from traditional media, this is more because creative agencies are not recommending to spend on new channels. Media agencies are more agnostic in their recommendations,” said Mitchell, after giving a presentation on his experience of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
“It is more the media agency’s job to give advice based on where people are spending their time, and their clients should heed it,” he said.
Mitchell is just over a year into his current role at Mondelez, having moved from the US, where he ran BP’s digital business at Mindshare, to Singapore, in January 2014.
I disagree. There is such a large number of agencies that advertisers can easily find whatever suits their needs. The problem is that advertisers expect agencies to compensate for their own incompetence and accept being paid very little. Agencies also have to wait for a long time to receive the payments (actually, Mondelez is notorious in that aspect). Innovation means experimenting, but with advertisers paying less over a longer period of time and agencies having to fight with tech companies for talent, it’s not surprising that many of them see innovation as risk. Still, if an advertiser has the proper marketing strategy, this shouldn’t be a problem because there is a large number of agencies and they can find what they’re looking for. As I said, the issue is that in many cases marketing people on the advertiser’s side don’t know what they should be looking for and expect agencies to tell them.
Dear Mr. Mitchell, is Mondelez will to pay their agencies more and not ask them to wait for several months to be paid?
ReplyWell he would say that wouldn’t he.
ReplyThat statement doesn’t make any sense.
ReplyThe point is not only about reach anymore as most of human being are multiscreen nowadays. And anyway, digital reach is based mainly on number of impressions. So you might be invisible on a very high reach volume platform.
The question is how you engage on this platforms to create a meaningful impact. And engagement strategy can come from both media and creative agencies. But creative are still better equiped for that (it might change).
Before thinking media or channels, the thing is to think idea and concept. The channels then come automatically.
The writer is alluding to the creative agency’s pre-iPhone/pre-Facebook thinking that media agnostic ideas are what matters.
If your ideas are media agnostic, you won’t propose new media ideas.
If you agency are truly media agnostic you probably can’t be trusted with social and mobile campaigns.
Ideation is a process where ideas, consumer behaviour and media has to be considered together as they work with one another to ensure the campaign success.
This is why technology or new media-driven companies (which exclude media agnostic agencies and media buying agencies) are the ones which are driving innovation, brand advocacy and product revolution these days.
So I disagree to Pete’s comment in that I see both creative and media agencies are to blame for holding back the industry especially if paid media like TVC or print still forms most of their revenue.
Let’s not waste time on the pot calling the kettle black.
ReplyCORRECTION: iamWednesday is not part of the Interactive Advertising Bureau(IAB). Both organizations do joint events every now and then, but iamWednesday is an independent, grassroots networking group for the digital industry. There is an obvious overlap between the two groups’ members who are in the same industry.
For example, I was one of the founders of iamWednesday/WebWednesday 8 years ago, and I have just been elected on to the IAB Singapore Leadership Council. But these are two completely different hats.
FYI Thanks!
Joe
ReplyHi Joe,
Thanks for pointing this out, and apologies for the error – the piece has now been amended.
Cheers,
ReplyRobin – Mumbrella
Is the problem that the media and creative agencies aren’t working closely together?
ReplyNo one listening truly believes this do they? The media companies are notorious for pushing and recommending traditional media spend because that’s how THEY make money. Many creative ideas die at the hands of marketers due to the fact that an innovative piece of communication via a new medium is untested and cannot provide any form of ROI. And since it is a new medium, there is no formula or rate card for how it is to be charged. At the end of the day, the marketer has to have the courage to invest in an idea, in an untested environment, and expect nothing in return if they really want to innovate.
Look at the BMW Films campaign. It’s a great example of creative and media strategy. There was no way the marketer, creative agency or media company could have predicted the success of that campaign – no way. But they took the risk to innovate and succeeded.
ReplyIn Asia, clients talk to media agencies before they talk to creative or brand agencies.
In China, the media plan often comes before the creative idea or media agencies provide creative ideas for free to win the media pitch.
This is a race for the gutter.
ReplyHave your say