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COURTESY The Media Leader.com

It’s tough being in one of the major advertising holding companies these days — not least because advertising itself is in transition.

This year’s financial reporting for the first half-year continues the well-established pattern. Holding companies are growing in single figures, while the big platforms increase at over 20%.

In former times, most advertising went through various agencies and holding companies reigned supreme. Now, they are struggling to grow as advertisers large and small (and especially the latter) do it for themselves on platforms created for that purpose. Independent agencies are also making inroads.

Holding companies are having to merge their agency brands to find efficiencies, most recently in India and Canada.

The future could be unpromising. We are rapidly approaching a time when advertising can be created and produced by generative AI and distributed by general AI, with no agencies involved.

And yet the very best advertising is still produced by agencies. Great creative work, brilliant media and strong analytics across multiple channels are usually the result of teams within agencies applying their expertise.

Better advertising

So this brings us to the Advertising: Who Cares? movement.

At our launch on 12 September, we shall be aiming to find ways to create better advertising through smart thinking.

This means better advertising that is effective and engages the public without intrusion and bombardment, created by specialists. It will engender a better advertising industry for today and tomorrow, bringing in fresh talent.

That smart thinking is not going to come from AI, but from clever people using it as a tool for creativity in all aspects of the industry.

What will we be talking about?

We’ll be hearing from Uncommon Creative Studio’s Lucy Jameson, who will open proceedings and set the scene.

There will be a spotlight on business models, with Michael Farmer presenting the findings of his workstream.

Jenny Biggam will summarise the output from her team looking at trading, transparency and trust.

We will look at measurement and accountability, with Denise Turner taking us through her group’s thoughts.

And we will hear about how Starling Bank zigged its way to success while others zagged, featuring Jessica Lovell of Wonderhood Studios and Pippa Glucklich of Electric Glue.

Crispin Reed will talk through his team’s work on recruitment and wellbeing, including dedicated focus groups among young people and their attitudes to advertising.

We’ll hear about the importance of brands and advertising.

Ruben Schruers will explore this subject with a senior representative of the publishing industry. After all, who wants the news to be delivered on platforms where anyone with an opinion can shout about it?

And, last but by no means least, David Wheldon and Sir John Hegarty will talk about the next creative revolution.

There will be time for discussion during the afternoon and afterwards until late.

New market realities

The findings of the day will be published in full and will form the basis of future work.

We have no sponsors to please; the tickets are charged at cost and everyone has donated their considerable time for free.

Who is attending? A significant number of senior advertisers and trade association representatives, agency people, media owners, consultants, research specialists — it’s a very interesting mix.

Who Cares? is also being supported by Ebiquity as part of its “better media” approach.

All of our themes are relevant to today’s agencies as they navigate their way through stormy seas and, of course, they are important to the next generation of agencies that reflect the new market realities.

The Who Cares? movement is timely because we stand at a crossroads as an industry. We can leave automation to do its thing or we can attempt to maintain the kind of thinking and skills that add up to great advertising.

Join us on 12 September to discuss the latter. Find out more here.

Nick Manning is the co-founder of Manning Gottlieb Media (now MG OMD) and was chief strategy officer at Ebiquity for over a decade. He now owns a mentoring business, Encyclomedia, offering strategic advice to companies in the media and advertising industry, and is non-executive chair of Media Marketing Compliance. He writes for The Media Leader each month.