Brands Will Be More Comfortable to Buy Media Directly

Brands and organizations traditionally have been heavily relying on advertising and marketing communication agencies to buy and schedule media whether it’s for their events, a new product or service, annual campaigns, fresh and creative campaigns, and so on. The way brand owners buy their media has been built on a three-way relationship between the brands themselves, media owners and media agencies as we all know.

Times have changed very dramatically now with the emerging digital and social media platforms that are encouraging and driving marketers to take more control of this new medium and buy their own media directly without needing to have contracted to an agency – this cuts-off the middlemen and opens for more transparency and relevancy.

Marketers have to be more accountable and transparent more than ever before, and are required to make use of effective marketing budgets backed up with reports of analytics and intelligence. Taking the global scenario, there is not a long way to go for buying media directly to dominate as most of all countries are now embracing and practicing. However, it’s not the case with Sri Lanka as brands are still stuck on their traditional foot.

As Pete Davis, managing director of innovative marketing ideas search engine Getmemedia.com, considers the role of brand managers in media buying in his article states ‘It is very possible that technical media like online will be bought directly by brands to a greater extent in the future, as this medium often supplies clear reporting data with click-through rates easily to hand. However, the notion that this model will be rolled out to encompass TV, Radio, Outdoor and Cinema, as well as other more niche channels, is simply not feasible. The power of these media for brands is not just about buying the relevant space for their target audience as cheaply as possible, but how that space is then used to bring smart ideas to life. Brands are not in the business of doing this, and trying to do so would be a dilution of their core focus – they don’t have the time, expertise or infrastructure to perform this role effectively.

Brands should not give up all responsibility for media to their agencies which actually is the case with many Sri Lankan organizations. The takeaway here is that the more clients are aware of what media owners can offer, the more the media works. The problem with many  agencies in Sri Lanka who call themselves as brand building and integrated marketing communication agencies have no education, knowledge and skills in these new areas and they simply jump off to this area with profits being the center of its motive and business models. This requires a proper framework as it’s been practiced on a very promotional basis in Sri Lanka than thinking strategically on how these new medium could add value to their client’s brand.

As the Marketer Pulse Magazine states ‘This is however evolving where the agencies will be completely out of the system meaning that organizations and brand owners will increasingly purchase media directly from media inventory owners. It is highly visible that as of now many brand owners are already buying directly from ad exchanges owned by three tech giants such as Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft’.

Advertising agencies will be on the safe zone hereafter (unless they invest heavily in educating their employees on these new medium and turn their business models into a sustainable digital transformation rather than profit motives) as it relies more on conventional PR, TV and Radio, and other BTL activities. Brand owners will feel much more comfortable to buy, schedule and plan up their own media. As we researchers have learnt, Sri Lankan agencies’ biggest revenue stream is the PR unit in their agency and they are pretty good at it – mostly, it’s all immature publicity stunts if you know what we mean! It’s almost conclusive to state that agencies might either stay on the game and play it safe or be left out.