Mark Ritson’s digital scepticism is ‘a service’ to industry, says new Omnicom Media Australia boss
The new boss of Omnicom Media Group in Australia, Peter Horgan, has described the recent comments from Professor Mark Ritson on the questionable value of some digital metrics as having done “something of a service to the industry”.
“Emperor’s new clothes”: Horgan
Ritson’s comments that digital media is a “tsunami of bullshit” have stirred a big debate in the industry as to whether too much value is being placed on the digital, and in particular, social media channels currently, when there is no recognised way to measure their effectiveness.
Speaking on a panel at APN Outdoor’s Media Jungle event today, Horgan – who assumed the top role at OMG last week – said: “Mark Ritson has probably done something of a service to the industry by calling a form of Emperor’s New Clothes on digital channels,” he said.
FFS, stop calling it OMG!
Very interesting talk. Shouldn’t it be causing more of a ripple?
The re-posting of Mark Ritson’s original presentation on Mumbrella 7 days ago barely caused a ripple either and neither will this. Why? The elephant in the room is largely being ignored by the industry who don’t want to talk about it. Isn’t it about time clients started demanding some answers to some tough questions. If the agency can’t answer them with anything more than bumbling excuses…sack them!
Prof. Ritson has been giving this talk for a number of years, why is it only now people are starting to pay attention? Well, lets hope they are anyway. I suppose everyone got wrapped up in the hype (especially the media reporting on it) and didn’t want to pull back the curtin on the effectiveness of digital marketing compared to other media.
No surprises there, in the new digital economy – where brands are built and value grown without high margin media spends – media agencies are doomed. There might be plenty of business in the old model for now, but no growth in the future and eventual contraction.
IMHO Ritson is actually doing *harm* to marketing – all he could lob at social media channels was that brands don’t have many followers and they don’t engage, completely missing that social channels are now essentially just highly targeted (and highly effective) paid media channels – are essentially ‘dwellable’ FTA TV. But he doesn’t understand any of this, or he’s conveniently ignoring it. If you want to see how friendly he is with media agencies, watch how he gives them a token questioning slide in his talks before giving them a pass and moving on to punching more babies.
If you want to see the future – just check out Gabe Leydon break it all down – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXBqzpExvrk
And if you want to climb above the internal thrashings of the industry and see the bigger picture – read this https://stratechery.com/2016/dollar-shave-club-and-the-disruption-of-everything/
Thanks. I watched Gabe’s vid. Good one!
Solid links Dinosaur. As for Ritson’s data, can anyone confirm what his definition of watching video on TV is?
I would watch 60-70% of my video on my TV set, but 0% of it is free to air or Pay TV. It’s not even plugged in to aerial or set-top box. Just broadband. All the video I watch on TV is from Netflix, iview, iTunes, torrents and Dendy Direct. So if you’re spending big bucks in TV to reach me off the back of this data, it’s a fool’s errand. As is increasingly the case for people 30 and under. The devil is in the detail.
The hype cycle backlash backlash is upon us.
Great article. Btw, Have you tried Binfer? It is a secure way to share digital media.