The UK advertising and media business is a powerhouse in the UK, and we should not underestimate its contribution. It has become a vital pillar underpinning the UK’s creative industry and global reputation. In our multimedia environment, the British public now access the majority of their content funded by paid-for advertising. The ecosystem of agencies, clients and media owners are the providers in an unstated value-exchange between media platforms and their consumers. This ecosystem, while increasingly complex, is extremely healthy in comparison with almost every other nation globally. The quality, range and relative accessibility of our content remains the envy of the world.
As a media agency, we exist first and foremost to grow our clients’ business value; to have a transformational impact upon the success of their business from their investment into media. Since establishing our ROI agency positioning in 2003, ZenithOptimedia have constantly been refining these skills in a world where the definition of media has widened dramatically. Our business has grown by providing expert access to media platforms and by recruiting from diverse areas to build robust new capabilities that we integrate for our clients.
These new specialisms have adopted many different kinds of digital and content services, but also increasingly data. Arguably, media agencies have always been data driven businesses; investing in and optimising large, operational systems to plan and buy efficient media schedules. However, there has been a quantum leap in capability. We are now able to help our clients develop a single view of their customers in order to execute media plans throughout the customer journey to purchase and repurchase. Amongst all this complexity, this is transformational.
Complexity, speaking as someone who worked for seven years on the client-side of the business, is also making the role of senior marketer increasingly challenging. As well as balancing creative judgement, the application of advanced analytics, consumer insight, and the ability to sell effectively, it is the explosion in the requirement to master the owned and earned side of media and the need to harness technology and data (big data in particular) that is accelerating the learning curve.
And as if that was not pressure enough, typically as Brits, we give ourselves a terribly hard time. Every industry needs to be subject to scrutiny and public debate, but sometimes advertising can be unfairly criticised. LEAD, the advertising industry’s leadership summit, is essential in showcasing the other side of the coin. Not spin, but instead some hard facts about the important role and contribution that advertising and media make to the UK economy, our culture and our reputation.
As an industry it is vital that we keep our story strong and for a few days each year under the LEAD banner, we are not competing, but instead helping to build out the reputation of the industry that we mutually support and depend upon, to engage government, wider society and continue to attract diverse skills and talent into this industry that will propel us further forward.
Grant Millar is CEO at ZenithOptimedia UK
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