Media matters. See what we did there with the cover of the current edition of AdNews? Matter, like atoms, get it? Anyway. Media does matter. And like atoms, it’s everywhere. Way beyond the pages of this magazine, or the website, or the high-level debate on stage at the Media Summit. Media matters in the very real lives of everyday people.
For those of you that attended the AdNews Media Summit last week, you might have been hoping to come away with an answer or two. But if you were anything like me, then you probably came away with a whole bunch more questions.
I always have questions, so it’s par for the course. There is an almost neverending list of issues that the media industry faces and they start – and finish – with the consumer.
While the day is unequivocally focused on the media side of the business, one thing that struck me reflecting on it afterwards was how much it is entwined with the creative side of the business.
In fact, Jason Buckley, CEO of Y&R Group, was the first on stage: “You might be wondering why a creative bloke is up here opening a media summit,” he offered. I wasn’t. One of the big issues at the 2014 event 12 months ago was the full-service debate, and how media and creative should be back together.
That debate hasn’t gone away, and while less prominent this year it did keep cropping up. But, by the end of the day, I was thinking that perhaps more creative blokes (and women) should have also been up there or at least attendance.
Buckley’s agency, GPY&R, created our Media Buzzwords Syndrome promo campaign, (watch it, if you haven’t already – if you don’t laugh out loud and then spend the next few days cursing yourself for how often you liberally pepper buzzwords throughout every meeting and conversation you have, I’ll give you your money back.)
In his opening remarks, the creative agency boss said he’s been attending the event since it began three years ago and it’s shaped the way his creative agency group does business.
“When I came back to Australia in 2012, I wanted to know where the money was going and what was really happening – and we all know that if you want to know that, you have to speak to the media guys,” he said.
“No longer can we afford this linear relationship between creative agency, media agency and media owner– it needs to be triangular. And put the customer at thecentre. That’s what we started doing.”
He’s right, of course. He’s obviously not the only one having that conversation within his business, so maybe next year the Media Summit will draw a bigger audience from the creative side of town, as we edge ever closer to a less siloed media, marketing and advertising world.
A version of this editorial originally appeared in the latest issue of AdNews Magazine (29 May). Want more? Subscribe in Print here, or get it right now on your iPad here.