You’ll struggle with the culture shift, Mat: The DNA of media buying is completely different to earned media
In this guest post, Anthony Freedman argues that media agencies will find it harder than they think to shift into public relations territory because it requires an entirely different culture.
Like a lot of people, I noticed the coverage surrounding Mat Baxter’s reveal of UM’s new “Creative Connections Agency” positioning last week.
It started with a piece in Mumbrella provocatively headlined “Media agencies aren’t our competitors” and continued the following day after Mat was goaded into stating UM “won’t be entering media agency awards any more”.
For anyone who didn’t read the stories, the gist of it is this; UM is no longer a media agency, it’s a ‘connections company’ that is embracing earned and owned media, and thus will herein compete with the likes of R/GA, Google and (closest to my heart) One Green Bean.
Fundamental to this repositioning, is a shift in remuneration methodology, from commission to head hours in the form of a retainer.
This Mat’s posits, will remove the temptation for the agency to recommend the channels where it stands to make most money.
All very admirable, and it’s important for me to say right now, this piece is neither designed to diminish the steps that UM are taking to modernize their business, nor fire cheap shots at Mat for having the balls to put his head above the parapet and share this vision.
But I do think it’s worth considering what it takes for a company to credibly claim expertise in owned and earned media.
From my experience, it’s not really about how the company is remunerated, although I do see why Mat’s view that objectivity can be skewed when income is derived from recommending some channels over others. (I’d like to have thought that professional integrity should also play a part in the recommendations you make, but I’ve always been an idealist.)
I think it’s about the DNA of not just the agency, but moreover the category in which that agency has grown up.
Given Mat chose to refer to One Green Bean, allow me to pick up where he left off.
OGB is a company borne of public relations and what sets public relations (PR) people apart from other marketing disciplines is this; they have always had to take a message a client wishes to communicate, and find a way to position or package it such that an editor will deem it worthy of publishing.
PR people pitching stories have to earn the right for their content to appear, and have done so by telling that story in a form the audience of that media, would consider interesting, useful or entertaining.
Those skills and that type of thinking are absolutely at the core of what makes a business like One Green Bean tick.
It’s has never had the luxury of being able to buy an audience for its content and so it’s developed an innate ability to think about how to solve clients’ briefs in ways that people will choose to consume, without being forcibly exposed to them.
Now all PR companies have worked in that way, but perhaps OGB was a little quicker that some, to see how those skills were immediately transferable to the world of social media, where the aim is ‘participation’.
Likes, shares, comments, co-creation – all designed to propel content across friendship networks.
Of course we now know that to effectively achieve that outcome, requires a degree of bought media within those channels, but the sums of money are trifling in comparison to many other more established media channels.
The key point is this; we live in a world with (mostly) diminishing marketing budgets, with expectations of both agencies and marketing teams, to deliver more with less.
We also see an increasingly savvy consumer, better able to screen out those commercial messages it wishes to avoid.
And concurrently have also witnessed the proven ability for great content from brands, to find audiences far larger than the total sum of their media spend, thanks to earned (and owned) media.
Today we have a growing requirement to add all this up, remove reliance on bought media, and deliver greater reach, with less cost, by better utlising earned and owned channels.
But if your entire culture has been built around trading dollars for attention ‘served on a platter’, it’s hard to affect the cultural shift required to develop content, understanding that ‘you’ll only eat what you catch’.
Beyond a remuneration method that removes temptation, and the technical know-how to listen, optimize and so on, it also requires an inherent ability to see how the client story can be told in a way that people will want to hear it.
An eye for editorial and an ear for social context.
These things are hard to build overnight in any agency for whom this hasn’t been part of their culture.
As Mat says amongst the comments following his Mumbrella piece “All journeys have to start somewhere buddy”, and he is right.
But I think there needs to be an acceptance that UM still has some way to go before it can credibly claim the expertise to unlock earned and owned channels as proficiently as it can bought channels – something that has been in its DNA right back to its inception.
Anthony Freedman is Founder and Group CEO of Host and One Green Bean
Yep, big difference between fishing where the fish are and actually having a line and bait
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‘ An eye for editorial and an ear for social context’. Great summation.
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Extremely well said. Anthony & Kat, congrats on all you’ve achieved with One Green Bean. You’ve got agencies from every sector scrutinizing your success & wanting a slice of it.
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“An eye for editorial”. Always surprises the journalists and editors among us when PR types claim to understand editorial when somewhere in the vicinity of 95% of what is pitched never sees the light of day.
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Great post and explains very well why smart PR agencies that are good and sophisticated at editorial media relations (in all kinds of industry niches) are doing so well in content marketing and social. Those with “bought” in their DNA always eventually come to regard “earned” as way too hard.
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I sense a bit of fear (and denial) here.
It’s not the 90s anymore. Media agencies have been moving into this space for years and have produced many successful campaigns. Coupling the ability to provide paid media with owned and earned capabilities on a large scale is ultimately where the most powerful campaigns will emerge.
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Mats story was a story – we are changing our agency to adapt to the ever changing landscape. Anthony’s is not – I am scared and you don’t have the skills. as a client I am extremely happy that UM are changing the landscape… congrats. Anthony – its cool mate – your offerings are still relevant and have their place… moving on.
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If we are listening to our clients and taking on board their needs then any of us can create the right offering provided we build the right talent base to deliver results.
I would imagine Mat has the dollars to entice a cracking PR team to sit side by side his cracking media team.
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Anthony it would appear your view of media agencies – what they do and how they operate – is a little dated. We (yes, I work in a media agency) are no longer simply bookers of spots and space but instead use data and insight to develop ideas that come to life across every consumer touchpoint. The most important of which being social. Because we understand the relationship between paid and organic, the strategic role of channels AND the behaviour/motivations of our audience UM’s move becomes totally logical.
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“What sets public relations (PR) people apart from other marketing disciplines is this; they have always had to take a message a client wishes to communicate, and find a way to position or package it such that an editor will deem it worthy of publishing…PR people pitching stories have to earn the right for their content to appear, and have done so by telling that story in a form the audience of that media, would consider interesting, useful or entertaining….[they’ve] never had the luxury of being able to buy an audience for [their] content and so [they’ve] developed an innate ability to think about how to solve clients’ briefs in ways that people will choose to consume, without being forcibly exposed to them”.
Thank you Anthony Freedman for being one ad guy who actually understands what PR/media is, why it’s so powerful and why it will be the central marcoms discipline of a future in which paid media is ever-diminishing in importance.
PR/media is in the box seat to drive native, content, owned digital, which ironically is being embraced by the mainstream media as its financial savior (I guess its ok to cross the church/state divide if you specifically pay to do so!).
As a Head of Function who runs marketing/media and PR teams, I have bad news for UM and Mr Baxter. It will take GENERATIONS for marketing/media people to ‘get’ an editorial sensibility because they just cannot put themselves in the audience’s shoes. They’ve spent decades pitching advertiser’s messages.
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Should also point out that what Mat and the UM team are doing is not really overly different from what many other agencies are doing or have done – many are changing or have changed their remuneration structures to remove reliance upon diminishing margins, and many are pursuing media opportunities beyond the traditional means of ads and spots… but credit to Mat for formalizing this shift within his own agency and earning himself and his agency some solid PR… because I suspect that this was all just a bit of a marketing exercise for UM.
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When talking about how good you are at PR and editorial, you may wish to hire a proofreader to look over your press release.
That aside, it is worth pointing out there is an awful lot of ‘earned’ media claimed by PR companies that is actually paid for, in the form of media partnerships with radio, TV and magazines.
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