Have your say on the Mumbrella360Manifesto
In this guest posting, PHD strategy director Chris Stephenson urges the industry to have a say on the creation of a new manifesto for the media industry at Mumbrella360.
The week after next, the key challenges and opportunities facing our media industry will be discussed in an entirely new way.
We will agree on what we believe. And we will write – live and in realtime – a manifesto. A manifesto for change. One that we all agree on. One that we can signal to everyone who works in our industry. One that we can signal to clients. One that frames the conversations between agencies and media owners. A manifesto that galvanises our industry into change.
Change, it is said, will never be this slow again. Australia’s media planning and buying industry – like others around the world – is witnessing fundamental shifts in the media landscape.
The impact of digital communications and technologies, the disintermediation of the broadcast interruption model, DSP’s and trading desks, social media and socialisation of advertising, fragmentation of media planning and buying services into digital and creative agencies and the monetisation of communications revenue in an online-oriented world to name just a few.
This is combined with increased pressure on margins from the fragmentation and commoditisation of media, and influence of procurement in marketing; but also – as has been highlighted recently – from increasingly high churn and challenging staff retention rates.
The debate starts now, and you are invited to shape it. You can be a part of the first satge, whether you are able to be at Mumbrella360 or not.
In the Manifesto session at Mumbrella360, several workstreams will debate the issues that we feel are most important, and capture agreement into several statements of belief. Which streams make the session are up to you … below are the options – please vote for your top five choices. The debate … your debate … starts here…
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- Chris Stephenson is the strategy director of PHD
- The Mumbrella360Manifesto session takes place at Mumbrella360 on June 7. Tickets and the full program are available on the Mumbrella360 website
“Brevity is the soul of wit” is one of my all-time favourite maxims.
However I am more philosophy of education than media industry, so what do I know?.
Having read through this I think there is a confusion between what are industy issues – eg tech systems and trading systems with media owners and on the other hand business opportunities for individual agancies to compete and be better than their rivals – eg content / creative development, staff development , social media skills etc.
The manifesto will end up being a whinging wishlist that will, I fear, yet again reveal how insecure many media agency people are about their role and status in the broader marketing and advertising world.
And while I’m here…..” the disintermediation of the broadcast interruption model” . Huh?
i’ve never understood this banter around ‘who owns the idea’ … aren’t we all paid to develop ideas for the client to own.
great marketers/brands own the idea – they aren’t told what to do by agencies, they lead their agencies.
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I’ve worked in media for the past 9 years and have found that clients respond best when ideas are explained in simple terms. Like others, I was struck by the following sentence “the disintermediation of the broadcast interruption model”
What is disintermediation?
The most popular definition on the web is:
Reduction in the use of banks and savings institutions as intermediaries in the borrowing and investment of money, in favor of direct involvement in the securities market
Another definition that could have something to do with media is:
In economics, disintermediation is the removal of intermediaries in a supply chain: “cutting out the middleman”. …
Aren’t media agencies the middle-men? Or is he saying that TV networks have been the dominant middlemen between consumers and content? Yep, I think he’s saying that.
Ok, the importance of TV networks will diminish as consumers increasingly get their content direct from the producers.
I agree with that. Good point. It’s a shame to hide its meaning with jargon. Good luck with your manifesto!
God, you’re being nice, Simon!… All I heard was “the disintermediation of the yada yada yada” and that pretty much goes for the rest of that article and it’s apparent intentions.
thanks for the comments are feedback everyone, its appreciated
@ Gezza – the intention is that rather than being a whinging wishlist it becomes a set of shared beliefs that challenge us as an industry
@ Gezza @ Simon Lawson @ Alison F – thanks for the comments around disintermediation, I fully accept that the term was way wa*kier than it needed to be … Simon yes its bascially that as people get content direct the middle-men get cut out … and in this case yes the middle men are not just media planning and buying agencies but also big media owners…
thanks again for engaging
Guys, ‘disintermediation’, while not being listed by Websters in a media context, isn’t a challenging term to interpret for our industry. If you read the details of the article (properly), you’ll actually see that for the first time we have someone attempting to create a guideline and a voice for media practitioners in Australia. This is more than the contract terms that exist between each client and agency; it’s an opportunity to reestablish the media agency’s postion within the industry.
Perhaps your criticism should be more constructive?
Rather than focusing on lyrical rhetoric, maybe you could be questioning the implications of how a dynamic industry may be anchored by creating static guidelines in the form of a manifesto? If the media industry is hinged on “change [that will] never be this slow again, will a media manifesto out-date itself before it’s even complete?
I’ve been in this industry for approaching nearly 25 years, and am looking forward very much to mumbrella360. This session is already intriguing me a lot. It has the potential to be either a significant tipping point for the or the biggest pile of shite any of us have yet experienced. I don’t think there’s going to be much room for any middle ground….
See you all there I hope.
Sorry everyone but I missed a word – you see, too excited already!
It should read “tipping point for the industry”
Thank you and good night.
@ Simon , thanks for your response. Good luck with this I guess I’m just not buying into the whole “manifesto and shared beliefs” thing.
WhiteWash TV
Let us debate the Anglo-Celtic homogeneous output that we deliver.
Just look around. OK 90% of us are now uncomfortable and wriggling. We all know it is an issue.
Would the KFC TVC featuring the West Indian Cricket supporters have been seen in a different light if KFC included the full diversity of their customer base in all of its TVC casting?
Corporate advertisers in the UK and US would not be able to get away with reinforcing such dated 1973 Australian values that we regularly portray on TV night after night.
What would you say if your corporate client called you to task, when they get outed for discrimination, because of sloppy casting?
TVC’s have an important part in defining our culture as it is a commonly shared experience we are all exposed to.
By excluding races or cultures are we devaluing those Australian citizens?
We can all start by talking to each other about the elephant in our room.
Gerard Hosier
@paddy douneen
@drmumbo
Perhaps the Manifesto could be rebranded as
Pivotal Point or Pile of ..
such a great title.
@Gerard Hosier… you don’t need to sign off on your posts. Just so you know.