The media industry is failing to practice what it preaches. Good at selling stuff for clients, bad at selling itself. That's a downward spiral, said media sales bosses.
“No-one in the industry talks it up,” said Bauer sales director Tony Kendall. “As an industry, we are saying 'things are bad', as opposed to getting out there and saying 'we are responsible for advertising growth'.”
Kendall was speaking on panel session with other media sales bosses at the AdNews Media Sales Summit last week.
“All we talk about is commoditisation and everything going down. But there's lots of opportunity for businesses to grow if we get off our backsides and say 'you have to advertise because it's good for business',” he said
Mi9's head of sales, Emma-Jayne Owens agreed. Advertising works, she suggested, and the drum must be banged. “We should be encouraging advertisers to still connect in the right ways with their consumers through tough times. There is evidence to suggest that when they do that they come out of the other side in a much better position.”
Winning more seats at boardroom tables would help the situation, argued Brendon Cook, CEO of Ooh!Media: “One of the big challenges is that we're not on boards. It's very easy for a CFO to say 'you've got to buy that accounting firm or legal firm' and they [the board] will pay the top dollar.
“For an industry whose job is to take clients' brands and make them heroes, we don't make ourselves heroes. And until we make ourselves heroes at the board table, nothing will change.
“We, as an industry, are not doing ourselves any favours in terms of selling up the profession.”
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