News

Media agency bosses to debate move to electronic trading

mUmBRELLA_360The key players in a multimillion dollar drive to bring Australian media buying onto an electronic platform will debate the issue at June’s Mumbrella360 conference in Sydney.

The move by Australia’s media agencies will revolutionise life in media agencies and for media owners as they move to a media equivalent of the ASX. Among those discussing the plans at Mumbrella360 will be:

From left: Tajer; Parkinson; Sintras; Horgan and Steedman

  • Media Federation president Henry Tajer, who is also executive chairman of Mediabrands including media agencies Initiative and UM;
  • James Parkinson who heads up trading for WPP’s media buying arm Group M, including agencies Mediacom; MEC, Maxus and Mindshare;
  • John Sintras, CEO of the Starcom Mediavest Group for Vivaki Exchange which represents the combined expenditure of  Starcom MediaVest, ZenithOptimedia and Razorfish;
  • Peter Horgan, CEO of OMD and lead negotiator for Opera which also includes PHD.
  • The panel is being curated and chaired by John Steedman, CEO and chairman of Group M.  

In an interview with Mumbrella last year, Tajer warned that if agencies do not make the move the industry “won’t survive” as the trillions of transactions carried out per year rise because of media fragmentation.

He said: “For us to be operating on an archaic paper based, or email, or fax-based processing is a glaring area of opportunity for us to survive longer term, to maintain a level of efficiency within our businesses and to be operating in an efficient way for our clients.”

The issue has become a major one as agency staff struggle to keep on top with bookings across a range of new media outlets.

Tajer said in the interview: “What we want to try and get to, is to look at the Australian Stock Exchange and the Australian Futures exchange and look at how they have evolved over the last 20 years to becoming electronic platforms. There is significant upside for everybody in the industry – media, agencies and clients alike… to put technology in place to help us manage that tonnage in a more efficient way.”

“If you take a mid to longer term view it has to happen, we won’t survive under the current model if it continues.”

Mumbrella360 takes place at Sydney’s Hilton Hotel on June 7 and 8.

Tickets – with an early bird price for those who book before April 15 – are now on sale.

Other elements of Mumbrella360 already announced include an opening keynote from Richard Freudenstein, CEO of The Australian and News Digital Media. The address – likely to cover  the role of newspapers in the digital world and the latest on News’ paid content plans – is set to be Freudenstein’s only public address of 2011.

Other sessions already announced include a discussion of ethics within the marketing industry; the creation of a new manifesto for the media industry; details on how the online industry will measure audiences in the future; a live experiment run by Naked Communications to prove the power of marketing to change behaviour; and an address from comedian and broadcaster Dan Ilic on the changing nature of TV.

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