This entry should put a bee in a few bonnets. Loved by media agencies, mostly despised by media owners, Schulze and Fennessy have built the Standard Media Index from scratch in Australia and are now invading the US market before anyone lifts their idea.
It has the backing of former All Black and Fairfax Media chief executive David Kirk, whose private equity fund has taken a stake in the business. What can’t be denied about SMI is its massive and ongoing impact on the Australian media and marketing sector.
On the 15th of every month, media owners wait to see how their sector and company has travelled versus competitors for the previous month and brace for media buyers looking for new ways to beat up media owners for better ad rates based on the latest spending data sourced from SMI’s deals with media agencies to get their aggregated, anonymous spending allocations on behalf of clients.
SMI was the brainchild of Schulze, a former media journalist, who spotted an opportunity to pool media agency spending data into a giant database to give buyers, sellers and analysts a faster, more robust window on spending trends in adland.
SMI has cut a swathe through the historical smoke and mirrors approach to buying and trading advertising and made for some unhappy operatives along the way. Seven under James Warburton fought hard against SMI’s launch but ultimately relented. Nine Entertainment Co. has since pulled out as a subscriber and others have threatened to do the same. But SMI remains.
