Pity the media buyers
Media buying is an odd craft and its practitioners can seem like unnecessary middle men from another age. After all, what can be so hard about picking up the phone to a newspaper and booking a quarter-page (or whatever), it’s not like they actually create the ad. Traditionally media buyers would explain that, apart from negotiating discounts (something they’re obviously expert in), they have a crucial planning role to play.
‘Rubbish,’ said Google and ‘rubbish’ said Yahoo! as they slashed agency commissions.
The giants of search – with seventy per cent market share between them – believe that their systems for auctioning ad space make negotiation redundant and planning isn’t much needed either. But all this assumes clients have the time and inclination to take their buying in-house and while online ad buying appears so simple it can quickly become complex. After all, what to make of the fact that keyword ‘publicist’ is so much more expensive than ‘pr consultancy’?
Media buyers will need to reinvent themselves – just like everyone else – but they’re certainly not redundant and we’d all do well to support them in their fight with the duopolists.
Contact Stephen Newton
Comments (2 comments)
I think the reason Google dropped agency commission for media buyers wasn’t related to the ability of a media buyer. Instead, it was more to do with the fact that their market share is so strong and Adwords is such a compelling part of the media mix that advertisers would place media buys on their sites anyway – i.e. they wouldn’t need a media buyer (well, actually a media planner) to make the recommendation.
What are your views on media planners?
Nic Mitham / November 6th, 2006, 4:13 pm / #
Hi Nic
I think I agree with you — like I say ‘they’re certainly not redundant and we’d all do well to support them in their fight with the duopolists’ — and I’m sorry if that didn’t come across strongly here.
Buying Google Ads isn’t always as straightforward as it seems (or Google would like us to believe). It’s not a very exciting view, but I think we’ll always need planners and those planners that adapt to the new media will do better than does who don’t.
Stephen
Stephen Newton / November 6th, 2006, 4:37 pm / #
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