 "Media agencies: Focus on where brand works harder")
The second day of Goafest 2015 saw the purveyors of media - both new and traditional - talk about how advertising has changed for them. The first day had seen their clients, the advertisers, talk about how digital change has fraught their equation with creative agencies. But the media agency, whose role has become more critical than ever as clients look to understand digital consumers and the data from tracking them, does not have a cakewalk in front of it either.
Guy Abraham, worldwide strategic marketing director, ZenithOptimedia, says that earlier brand purpose was mostly the realm of creative agencies. "But now a concept like brand purpose, has a meaning for media agencies, too. We are the RoI (return on investment) agency but something like brand purpose is significant to us because brands have left the area of product advertising and entered the product experience across touchpoints (paid, owned, earned). That is what we manage."
While marketers know the kinds of media (paid for, own property and earned buzz) available, Abraham revealed how media agencies today put them to use. "We can't focus anymore on where the moneyis spent but focus on where the brand works harder."
The media agency can no longer just depend on the content for their client brands' activities. Abraham says, "We have to go outside the supply chain of creative content to curate content - those provided by the YouTube talent or the Twitter humourists."
Neil Stewart, head of agency, APAC, Facebook, warmed up the audience with his quick wit and easily relatable examples from the social network almost everyone is on. Stewart underlined the level of targeting that is possible with such platforms, how it is possible for brands to finally prevent consumers from asking, 'You already know about me, so why are you showing me something irrelevant?'
Stewart in a nod to mass media's biggest challenge of fragmentation, he mentions that frequent, conventional ads run the danger of killing "the golden goose". Even lazy retargeting, in the digital medium - sending continuous messages about printer cartridges even after the person who searched for it had bought one - should be avoided.
Jonny Stark, SVP - Apac at Razorfish, too, raised the point of how research has shown most consumers avoid ads. He says that when companies ask for solutions for a brand problem, he asks them what is the consumer problem leading to it.
"We have to think how to serve useful content to build a community around it...when content, community and commerce combine, that is when we have a powerful force," he says, warning brands to avoid launching straight into commerce (sales) by hammering messages on them.
Earlier in the day, the celebrity quotient at the fest went a notch up when Prasoon Joshi, CEO of McCann Worldgroup India and Chairman of McCann Worldgroup Asia, moderated a session with Time Now's editor-in-chief, Arnab Goswami, and bestselling author, Chetan Bhagat took to the stage.
While Goswami chose to say that every medium is relevant if people watch and respond, and how neutrality when it is wrong, is weakness, Bhagat reminded the audience to be friends with everyone, as one never knows who turns out to be a .com someday.
Guy Abraham, worldwide strategic marketing director, ZenithOptimedia, says that earlier brand purpose was mostly the realm of creative agencies. "But now a concept like brand purpose, has a meaning for media agencies, too. We are the RoI (return on investment) agency but something like brand purpose is significant to us because brands have left the area of product advertising and entered the product experience across touchpoints (paid, owned, earned). That is what we manage."
While marketers know the kinds of media (paid for, own property and earned buzz) available, Abraham revealed how media agencies today put them to use. "We can't focus anymore on where the moneyis spent but focus on where the brand works harder."
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He reminds brands that they must ensure their owned media, which in the digital context, could include their own website or their own Facebook page, is up to the mark. If it is not, then it would lead to a "waste of money, otherwise, because your paid media (banner ads or even TVCs with a link to the website) would be redirecting consumers to a less than optimum page, and you will lose them".
The media agency can no longer just depend on the content for their client brands' activities. Abraham says, "We have to go outside the supply chain of creative content to curate content - those provided by the YouTube talent or the Twitter humourists."
Neil Stewart, head of agency, APAC, Facebook, warmed up the audience with his quick wit and easily relatable examples from the social network almost everyone is on. Stewart underlined the level of targeting that is possible with such platforms, how it is possible for brands to finally prevent consumers from asking, 'You already know about me, so why are you showing me something irrelevant?'
Stewart in a nod to mass media's biggest challenge of fragmentation, he mentions that frequent, conventional ads run the danger of killing "the golden goose". Even lazy retargeting, in the digital medium - sending continuous messages about printer cartridges even after the person who searched for it had bought one - should be avoided.
Jonny Stark, SVP - Apac at Razorfish, too, raised the point of how research has shown most consumers avoid ads. He says that when companies ask for solutions for a brand problem, he asks them what is the consumer problem leading to it.
"We have to think how to serve useful content to build a community around it...when content, community and commerce combine, that is when we have a powerful force," he says, warning brands to avoid launching straight into commerce (sales) by hammering messages on them.
Earlier in the day, the celebrity quotient at the fest went a notch up when Prasoon Joshi, CEO of McCann Worldgroup India and Chairman of McCann Worldgroup Asia, moderated a session with Time Now's editor-in-chief, Arnab Goswami, and bestselling author, Chetan Bhagat took to the stage.
While Goswami chose to say that every medium is relevant if people watch and respond, and how neutrality when it is wrong, is weakness, Bhagat reminded the audience to be friends with everyone, as one never knows who turns out to be a .com someday.