| | Media Buyer & Planner Today | | | | | | | | | #1 Amazon No Paradise for Ad Buyers | | Agency media buyers tell Digiday that in many instances they are struggling to navigate Amazon's client services teams. They say building relationships with Amazon personnel specifically assigned to facilitate their clients' ad buying has often faced obstacles. Theresa Moore, VP of platform partnerships at Pixability, says she's been trying to buy video ads on Amazon for more than a year to no avail. She says instead of putting her in contact with someone to help her buy ads, the Amazon user-experience team sent her a $100 Amazon card to learn about her experience trying to contact the company. Digiday says she is only one of many buyers who can't seem to secure Amazon reps to help them run ads. "It's at a level where you can only develop a relationship with Amazon if you know someone," one ad buyer from a large agency told Digiday. Digital agency PMG says it took more than a year to establish a relationship with Amazon. Agency execs believe Amazon is more concerned about having relationships with brands directly than with their agencies. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: As frustrating as it is for agencies, most acknowledge that Amazon is following the same playbook of the other digital platforms like Google, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, which were all slow to make their client services teams available to work with agencies. They all initially preferred to build relationships directly with large brands. And the larger the brand, the easier it is to get Amazon cooperation. "Amazon definitely gives more interest and more resources to the larger brands," one ad buyer says. PMG executive VP of digital strategy Price Glomski says until a majority of ad agencies and smaller brands feel they are getting the attention they need from Amazon, other platforms with robust client services teams like Google and Facebook will continue to retain more market share. | | A Take: Digiday | | | | #2 Media Pitches More Burdensome for Agencies | | Agency reviews by brands are becoming so frequent and so complex, that it is raising questions about how much time and money agencies can spend to participate in these competitive reviews, according to an Ad Age report. And brands' insistence that holding companies now participate with multiple agencies in areas of buying, creative and digital at the same time is further complicating the process. Add to that the stress agencies face of being pitted against one another in a more competitive way than ever before. Meanwhile the review process, which used to take just a few months, can now involve multiple pitches that can span over a year or longer. That means large amount of staff people working separately and with lots of overtime pay just on formulating and fine tuning the pitches aimed at meeting the needs of prospective clients. And clients are now hiring consultancies to assist with the review process, but those consultancies aggravate the situation by posing hundreds of lines of questions for each agency to answer. Agencies say many of those questions are hard to answer hypothetically without knowing more about the clients' needs. "The whole process has gotten out of control," says one agency executive, who oversees new business efforts at a major global media agency. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: For sure, clients have a right to be as thorough as possible when reviewing which agencies they will hire. And as MDC Media Partners and Assembly CEO Martin Cass says, "Clients are rightly nervous, and there's a lot more process in there to make sure they are getting what they think they are getting." But clients also have to realize that if they want increased services, it is hard for agencies to do that while at the same time offering the lowest pricing possible. It's a two-way street and the old adage must still be considered: You Get What You Pay For. | A Take: Ad Age
| | | | #3 Campbell Review Threatens Longtime Relationships | | The soup company is conducting a global review aimed at consolidating media and creative duties within the same holding company, and that could end its relationship with one or both of its current agencies – BBDO for creative and MEC for media, Ad Age reports. Omnicom-owned BBDO has been handling Campbell business for more than 50 years, while WPP's MEC has worked with Campbell since 1999. Campbell wants agencies within one holding company to handle strategy, creative, digital, media planning and buying, brand PR and design across multiple regions, including the U.S., for its brands of soups, meals and beverages. | | WHY THIS MATTERS: Campbell has been struggling with sales, with the company's overall sales for the most recently quarter ending Oct. 29 falling by 2% and soup sales dropping 9%. The company is seeking to gain some efficiencies by combining all agencies under one roof. The loss of this account for BBDO and MEC would be a major blow since Campbell spent some $321 million on advertising last year, according to the Ad Age Datacenter. | A Take: Ad Age
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| | 612.9 | | Dollars in billions of 2017 travel sales worldwide that will be booked via any digital device, according to eMarketer projections. That's up 11.7% over 2016, and is expected to grow to $676.4 billion in 2018. More consumers are booking their travel plans via digital devices and Trip Advisor is the leading digital travel platform. | – Reported by eMarketer
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| | CBS Outwits, Outplays, Outlasts Competition With 'Survivor' Finale | by Michael Malone
CBS took the ratings prize in Wednesday prime, putting up a 1.8 rating in viewers 18-49, and a 7 share. That doubled the 0.9/4 posted by NBC. CBS had the Survivor finale at 1.9. The reunion special did a 1.6. Survivor did a 1.6 the week before, and its spring finale scored a 1.9. NBC had a Will & Grace repeat, then the film Pitch Perfect at 0.9. ABC did a 0.6/2. It had repeated comedies, then a repeated Match Game. Fox was at 0.5/2 with repeats of Empire and Star. Telemundo and Univision both did a 0.4/2. The CW rated a 0.3/1. Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer scored a 0.3 and The Top 12 Greatest Christmas Movies of All Time a 0.2.
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| • AVERY GROSS was named to the newly created role of associate partner and executive creative director at VSA Partners New York. He was previously executive VP and ECD at Publicis Groupe, and prior to that held executive creative roles at Cramer-Krasselt and Leo Burnett.
• PREETI PATEL was appointed VP, technology at Rauxa New York. She was most recently senior director of technology for IPG agency Huge and has also held tech roles at 360i. | |
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| Technology Leadership Summit
February 28 – March 1, 2018 | Raleigh, NC
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20th Annual Multichannel News Wonder Women Luncheon
March 22, 2018 | New York, NY
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Advanced Advertising Summit – Spring Edition
March 26, 2018 | New York, NY
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Multicultural Television Summit
April 3, 2018 | New York, NY
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Technology Leadership Awards at NAB
April 9, 2018 | Las Vegas, NV
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The Programmatic Summit
June 2018 | New York
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Digital Media Tech Leadership Summit
June 2018 | Location TBD
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