Media agencies are not telling their stories as well as creative agencies. For that reason, they will continue to be outgunned in their own awards category as more and more parts of the advertising industry pile in. That's not going to change any time soon, according to IPG Mediabrands CEO Matt Seiler.
Of the 3,000 plus entries to the Media Lions awards this year, more than 90% were entered by non-media agencies. Creative agencies, production houses, PR, content producers, TV networks are all entering the fray, which means media agencies need to stand up to make sure their contribution is recognised.
The proportion of work entered by non-media agencies increased this year. It’s a factor of broad media fragmentation and expansion that “everything is media today”, according to Media Lions jury president and global CEO of IPG Mediabrands, Matt Seiler.
Kate Thomas, strategy director at Dynamo New Zealand, believes a the proportion of entries coming from non-media agencies should worry media agency bosses.
Mark Pejic, CEO of MediaCom Australia and a fellow judge for the 2014 Media Lions category agreed that it’s an issue media agencies should note.
"What is media? It’s everything. Everyone is attacking a solution from man directions and media agencies need to get better at telling their stories and attributing their efforts towards a campaign. Gaining more ownership for their work and presenting it in that way," said Seiler.
The creative agencies are definitely doing that a lot better. Media agencies are very busy places and awards are critically important, but they take a definite second stance to the day to day work – you’ve got to get the day job done,” he said.
Speaking at the announcement of the Cannes Lions Media awards, Seiler said he “didn’t care” where award entries came from, but conceded media agencies are not doings a good a job as they could at talking about their work.
“I think the best ideas should be the ones that win and it’s incumbent on all of us in media agencies to make sure that we’re telling the story as well as the creative agencies. We’re a part of a lot of the great stories – the winning submission [for Nivea], is a story that is just told really well. There is an opportunity for a number of parties outside the creative agencies to tell their story better, and I appreciate that we’re held to a very high bar for the story telling. There were number of media agencies that won but there’s going to be a disproportionate number of creative agencies [entering and winning the category] until the work is all really good,” he said.
Nivea was awarded the Grand Prix in the Cannes Lions Media category and was entered by creative agencey Havas Lima. All four of Australia's Media Lions winners were entered by creative agencies.
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