I’ve just finished chairing the media category for this years WPP awards celebrating creating excellence, the WPPed Creams (can you see what we did there?).
In the five years since their inception the number of entries into the media category has grown four fold and the number of different types of agencies has doubled. Every type of agency wants to be seen as media leaders, it is after all where the action is. Read more on Which came first, the chainsaw or the egg?…
I have just read an article that summarised the findings from interviewing 250 procurement people from around the world. The interesting statistics that stood out to me are that they on average spend 25% of their working day in collating data on the marketplace and suppliers. Then 92% of the respondents rely on getting this data from their suppliers. With 60% replying on ‘costly management consultancies’ for this same data.
For me this is quite staggering. Of course you get the most reliable spend data on your organisation from your supplier as it will always be better than your Accounts Payable system. But knowing your market and the category of spend that you are responsible for is a key part of any procurement person’s role – can you trust suppliers to be open and honest, or will they want to play a game in controlling the data that they will provide you. What happened to Mintel reports; Keynotes; attending industry conferences; reading relevant market publications (such as Media Week); using Google to search for this information and of course talking to peers and suppliers is part of the data gathering process. When I talk to Procurement people about the basics e.g. industry magazine subscriptions, they say that they cannot afford it. One of my clients last year was a High Street retailer and I was passing them my old back copies of my magazines. Read more on Who can Procurement trust?…
With the thought of mince pies and cake rapidly being replaced with the opportunities and commitments of the new year, I thought I’d share this piece by Strategist Charlie Wright on why the annual planning cycle or, to give it a seasonal edge, annual new year resolutions aren’t the best way of achieving objectives.
Read more on Cooking with Gas Part 3 – New Year’s Resolutions…
I am sure that you have seen The Good Pitch Guide recently published by both the IPA and ISBA. It covers 6 pitch principles that both clients and agencies should try and adhere to. They are common sense and make perfect sense e.g. treat the pitching process with respect.
A week or so later my inbox gets three more pitching guides. One from the IVCA (The International Visual Communications Association) – this is 26 pages of instilling good practice when you are procuring visual and corporate communications. Then the HCA (Healthcare Communications Association) issued an one pager on their Pitching Code of Conduct. Then from across the pond, the ANA and 4A’s have issued their own guideline for undertaking an Agency Search (18 pages this one). Read more on It’s raining Pitch Guides…
It was quite a week in the south of France last week. The annual gathering of several thousand creatives, advertisers, marketers and tech bods, was the best yet for those into digital.
Read more on Cannes Lions 2010 – Digital Insights, Videos and Interviews…
I’ve had a week to digest the talking points of our Zeitgeist conference, where royals, bankers, business leaders, journalists and even an Amazonian tribal chief came together to discuss issues of the day. But one issue in particular stuck in my mind – sustainability.
As you may have read in a previous post, our house is currently a building site and we’re living in temporary accommodation. Although the flat is nice enough, the family and I are all starting to miss our creature comforts: my wife and I the garden and the Sky Plus HD box, the kids their trampoline. But we’re united in yearning for broadband which we’re all struggling to cope without.
My youngest daughter is a fan of the Bratz website (about dolls and accessories, for those of you without young girls), my son his Xbox live gaming & my eldest a constant stream of YouTube – let alone all their homework requirements which seem to demand internet access these days.
I’ve recently come back from a couple of days in the north,
where I had breakfast, lunch and dinner with most of our agency partners in
that part of the world.
Albeit
we’re in a major media recession it was interesting to see this
week’s IAB numbers showing continued growth for digital. Online
ad spend in 2008 rose 17.1% to £3.3bn, and online spend now
makes up over 19% of the overall market in the UK. The UK is still
leading the world in terms of digital advertising, but my question is
how do we maintain this position?
During “Snow Day” as I was building a terrific snowman with my kids (if I say so myself), I got thinking about the behaviour of all those like me that were stranded for the day (and just how good my snowman was – see right). It also got me thinking about the great opportunities that were afforded to me and the kids by the Internet: to continue communicating and engaging with work, friends and brands alike from the comfort of home.
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