Big data has failed me. Like every right-minded person I bought the argument that world peace would be achieved, or at least that my life would be immeasurably better as a result of all those clever algorithms. Yet somehow I am still bombarded by unimaginable crap every day – and this crap is not just annoying it is startlingly, professionally irrelevant.
Hack Attack
19 March 2015
Sometimes the last people to realise that something is going on are the very people to whom the thing in question is happening. Or to put it another way, no amount of sticking your fingers in your ears and running around singing a merry tune to drown out the unpleasant news can make the unpleasant news go away.
Deal or No Deal
09 March 2015
It’s been another few weeks of less-than glorious headlines for the media agency industry. In Australia, Aegis has admitted to negotiating so-called value banks from media owners, a practice brought to public attention by GroupM who decided to audit the operations of its subsidiary MediaCom once ‘anomalies’ in campaigns placed on behalf of three large clients came to light.
In the USA, MediaCom’s ex-CEO, the respected Jon Mandel used a conference platform at the annual ANA event (the ANA is the US advertisers’ association) to claim that practices involving agencies making extra commissions via kick-backs and the like are common in the States.
An Industry Built on Lack of Interest
03 March 2015
I’ve said before that I fear for the media agency business. My issue is less around what used to be referred to as the planning side – there are plenty of excellent people creating loads of initiatives of value and relevance – and more to do with the execution of the plans, or (as they used to be called) the buys. The fact is that clients increasingly don’t trust their agencies. How on earth did the agencies get into this pickle?