Future of Media Summit Blog

* Donald McBain, Head of Brand Marketing, MLC
* Alena Jang, MLC
* Nicholas Wong, Manager, Corporate Strategy, SBS
* Stephen Hollings, CEO, News Digital Careers
* Chris Bishop, BizNet
* Caesar Wong, Web Managing Editor, IBM
* Craig Blair, Netus
* Roger Kermode, Prime Digital Works
* (sorry, didn't catch her name)?, Yahoo
* Michael Broadhead, Folk
* Kara Sullivan, Folk

Marketers changing focus on CPC, wanting more action.
Underlying metrics: Different publishers have different spins. Some
emphasise engagement, UB's, PI's, CPM, etc.
Yahoo! Gateway - performance display, connection between offline and
online. On back of TV commercial - "Search on Yahoo for XYZ"
Much greater fragmentation, unbundling. Takes longer to buy media.
Instead of 5 calls, now it takes dozens.
Agency commission gone in the last 10 years for most, but agencies
starting to charge "consulting fee" to claw this back.
Online consolidating to representation (e.g., "networks")
Clients saying they want to do innovation for sake of innovation ("I
want to do an online ad", vs focussing on the message and target)
Agencies often having independent "strategy units" to tie together
different media types
Media agencies currently unskilled at doing the cross-media planning.
Many set up a "new media" division. Clients don't want that, they
want a media plan.
Influx of hedge fund skills into media buying. Think of them as asset
managers vs agencies.
Demand for data and analytics increasing rapidly.
Can we design our sites for larger screen sizes? Are those people in
a more valuable demographic?
"Free will win, but it will come at a cost" - Nicholas Wong, SBS