{"id":1227,"date":"2019-09-20T12:35:38","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T11:35:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/?p=1227"},"modified":"2019-09-20T12:35:38","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T11:35:38","slug":"whats-groupm-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/whats-groupm-for\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s GroupM For?"},"content":{"rendered":"

My apologies to GroupM for the click-bait title. I could just as easily have substituted OMG, MediaBrands or Publicis Media for the WPP media operation, but that\u2019s what you get if you\u2019re the tallest poppy \u2013 you attract all the attention, wanted or not.<\/p>\n

Now that I\u2019ve got your click, the real question is: what is the point of the media agency mini-holding companies? Do they even have a point anymore?<\/p>\n

The question as it pertains to GroupM in particular was posed by Gideon Spanier<\/a> in the current print edition of \u2018Campaign\u2019. He writes that he\u2019s made the point about the need for a reboot at GroupM before, in 2016. This time around Gideon writes: \u2018GroupM has struggled to articulate its purpose in this changed market or even why it needs to exist as a brand.\u2019<\/p>\n

This never even used to be a question. It was generally accepted by advertisers that the biggest buyers got the best deals. That\u2019s not to say that it was true, just that certain figures within advertiser organisations believed it to be true. And it suited the holding company bosses to play that tune.<\/p>\n

The bigger you are the better the deals in other words. So if you happened to have Mindshare, MediaCom, what was then MEC and the dear departed Maxus in your stable, why wouldn\u2019t you aggregate all those lovely volumes together into one even lovelier volume and beat the crap out of any media owner that dared to ask for some business?<\/p>\n

As Cog Blog readers are a discerning and well-informed bunch, you\u2019ll have spotted the flaw in this plan. Or rather, the several flaws.<\/p>\n

But flaws or no flaws, on March 5th<\/sup> 2015 the first small cracks that would lead eventually to the world caving in for those whose profits and bonuses depended on media-vendor revenue appeared.<\/p>\n

That was the fateful day when one of GroupM\u2019s past employees, Jon Mandel, in his role as an independent consultant stood up in front of the US advertiser association, the ANA and presented the results of his research into the admitted behaviours of the planning and buying community.<\/p>\n

Mandel did not name names \u2013 and it is important to stress that the criticisms of behaviours have never been focussed on any individual agency or agency group.<\/p>\n

The point remains though that the trend for aggregating spend volumes as a key element in negotiations has at the very least slowed in the wake of the investigation that followed Mandel\u2019s original presentation.<\/p>\n

GroupM, and the other mini-holding companies still have a role in a non-volume obsessed world.<\/p>\n

Their very scale allows them to attract talent, to invest in specialist businesses, research tools and technologies that can then be made available to the client-facing media agencies within the stable.<\/p>\n

They can or should be able to drive consistencies through their networks, ensuring the highest standards and sharing best practice.<\/p>\n

The individual networks do this too, of course but their focus is, rightly on their clients. A supra-organisation can play a useful role setting operating principles and supporting their networks.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting debate as to whether an organisation like Xaxis exists primarily as a centre of excellence to the GroupM agencies, or as a winner of direct business. I can well imagine that the stakeholder debates on boundaries, and where one stops and the other starts were and are lively.<\/p>\n

The media agency landscape is evolving as planning and related activities move centre-stage, and as trading moves to sit alongside as opposed to above these more consultancy-looking roles.<\/p>\n

The mini-holding companies need to evolve too. Naturally some will do that better than others. We\u2019ll see how that goes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My apologies to GroupM for the click-bait title. I could just as easily have substituted OMG, MediaBrands or Publicis Media for the WPP media operation, but that\u2019s what you get if you\u2019re the tallest poppy \u2013 you attract all the attention, wanted or not.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1228,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions\/1228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bjanda.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}