Enough with the doom mongering, let’s decide how we want the industry to be
Instead of worrying about a future that will most likely never arrive, the industry needs to start thinking pragmatically about what it actually wants to look like, argues IAB Australia's Gai Le Roy.
Imagine it’s 2021. I’m betting we’re not getting our Amazon deliveries via drone, driverless cars have still not taken over the roads and we do not have robot personal assistants ringing our hairdressers to book haircuts.
But one thing I know for certain is that most of our media will be being traded, and measured, digitally.
In a nutshell – in three years’ time most things will still look the same. The TV will still be the biggest screen for video content consumption, people will be more glued to their mobiles and out of home and radio will have moved even deeper into the digital space.
This is why many of the arguments currently swirling around ‘digital’, while important, are short-sighted for the entire industry.
Everyone acknowledges there are some immediate issues which need to be solved, but no-one seems to be addressing the elephant in the room: what do we want the industry to look like?
It’s time to set our sights higher, get out of the short-termism mindset which is a threat to the whole industry, and decide what standards we want the industry to hold itself to in 2021.
That’s why we’re offering the industry a chance to ‘be the change you want to see’, in a session at Mumbrella360. And I mean the whole industry, from marketers, agencies, publishers, platforms and tech vendors. Everyone with an opinion is welcome.
We’ve started the ball rolling by identifying the four issues that are most worrying for them looking to the 2021 horizon:
- What will be the skills/capability required?
- What will we need to deliver measurement and attribution?
- How will data privacy impact the industry?
- How will technology improve digital transparency?
So these will be the topics for discussion at our session, which takes place at 9.30am on Wednesday, June 13 at Mumbrella360.
We’ll be splitting delegates into tables to discuss these topics and come up with a takeout to share with the room and we’ll be reporting back to the industry the following day via Mumbrella.
But we can’t do any of this without your input. So if you care about the future of your industry, join me and share your expertise and opinions, to help us work towards the future we all want to see in our industry.
Gai Le Roy is interim CEO at IAB Australia.
Purchase your tickets for Mumbrella360, which comes to Sydney next week, here.
