MFA’s ‘We are the changers’ sets out to show what a ‘sexy industry’ media agencies offer
In light of the new MFA purpose, ‘We are the changers’, Mumbrella’s Calum Jaspan spoke to the MFA’s director of people, Linda Wong, MFA board member and CEO of Havas Media, Virginia Hyland and Sophie Price, chief strategy officer at MediaCom about the need for a new message, and how to restore pride in their work.
“I think what we learned over the last few years, is that we’d lost that lack of pride in the industry,” says Linda Wong, director of people at the Media Federation of Australia. Everyone’s so proud of the work that we do [..] but the younger people in our industry don’t get to talk about it, and they feel like they’re not part of it, but they are part of it, they’re just not always a part of that day to day conversation.”
The MFA, the collective body for Australia’s media agencies, recently launched its new industry-wide platform and purpose, ‘We are the changers’ at its annual awards ceremony last month.
If the aim of this campaign is to improve retention of junior staff and attract new staff to the industry, I sincerely hope it is backed by some serious introspection as to the treatment of junior staff within agencies, and the culture (set by those at the top) that they are exposed to.
I applaud the effort but how credible is the claim … can’t the media industry as a whole focus on it’s most legitimate proof point, that it can play a role in helping client businesses improve their revenue and share price.
The idea the average media agency person is influencing culture, or being told it’s a “sexy” industry when a lot are hammering out buys on an agency trading desk or dealing with BCC.
How is a media agency changing culture any more than a call centre or any professional service? The ambition is great but does it work when it’s so far removed from the reality of the job (which is a fine job, but not one where you’re changing the world … and that’s fine)
I qualify as a media agency veteran. Today, my professional worldview oscillates wildly between c.50% of the time still having enthusiasm and belief whilst spending the remaining c.50% in a quasi-state of abject despair. Our industry is reaping the rewards of a quarter century of unbundling, little-to-no training (beyond ad tech), and a prioritisation of algorithmically optimised day trading. Media agencies are staffed by several generations of professionals of whom many lack any exposure to the ad creative development process, who by-and-large actively avoid ad exposures in their own lives, and who busily calculate day-to-day metric trees without any understanding of or appreciation for the longer-term marketing forest. This is compounded by the corporates putting a pound of focus on overall DEI (nothing wrong with DEI) for each ounce of focus on the overall quality of their work (a lot wrong with that).
@Sparky’s comment above in spot on: today’s media investment advice has become primarily a technology function rather than a creative services one. The best agency mantra I’ve seen is BBDO’s “The Work. The Work. The Work.” It’s the only one that stayed with me beyond the HR leaflet. If we are to become changers, the only way to get there is through taking pride and ambition in the quality of the advertising (message + media) work.
P.S. It’s just the same client side.
P.P.S. It’s just the same overseas.
#1 gripe among Generation Covid is lack of training & development. When asked why they don’t get enough training (when it is usually available) they always say they don’t have time for it. Without going down the rabbit hole of a media agency P&L, the pie only ever gets smaller so doing more with less is always the mantra and that often strips out desire for proactive work. Ask a media planner what their week was like 10-15 years ago and it will sound like mardi gras compared today, when an algorithm does all the long lunch negotiating. Maybe consider lightening the load on your activation teams and add training completion as a mandatory KPI to performance reviews.
Advertising is a technology not a creative services industry now- the technology keeps evolving, new functionality, new platforms, new ways to harass your target audience etc- so to remain an in-demand talent, ongoing competency with the key ad tech platforms will get you the best $ down the road. If you are a group director or senior enough not to need to know how the sausage gets made, your soft skills are more easily replaced than someone younger & cheaper’s hard skills.
Ad tech and excel sheets are not sexy, media agency offices necessarily are not sexy (so clients dont think they are paying you too much) and those clients digging for one small tracking report error to beat you over the head with is also, never sexy. Park up the tank, lose the ‘but its our budget’ attitude and go over and hang out with your clients creative agency to co-create something amazing that is sexy.
If you want to retain junior staff, treat them with respect. Stop demanding degrees, but paying peanuts and requiring them to work insane hours. It’s any wonder they leave.