Is it time to appoint a chief media officer? | WARC | The Feed
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Is it time to appoint a chief media officer?
Three quarters of advertisers and agencies think large advertisers would enhance their media management capabilities with the appointment of a chief media officer, according to a new report from ID Comms.
Why it matters
The figure of 73% is based on a small sample (45 responses from Media, Marketing, and Procurement professionals with a range of global, regional and local market responsibilities) but it is significantly up on 2019’s 57%. As the media space becomes increasingly complex, a specialist position makes sense.
It is also evident that an important function of a chief media officer will be to improve media capabilities. The 2022 Global Media Training Report notes a long-standing failure to upgrade investment in training despite unanimous agreement that investing in media training programmes can improve media decision making and deliver better business outcomes for advertisers.
Takeaways
- Advertisers with a chief media officer (either with or without the job title) are far more likely to hold media to higher levels of accountability by raising internal media capabilities within marketing teams.
- Seventy-nine percent of respondents rated their ability to ‘make media more accountable’ as unsatisfactory.
- Eighty-five percent of media and marketing professionals – though only 50% of advertiser procurement respondents – considered investment levels to be unsatisfactory and expressed clear concerns with current levels of investment in media capability building, both within their own organisation and across the industry as a whole.
- The main reason identified for under-investment in media capability building was lack of budget, followed by an inability to find the right training opportunities and commit time to media training.
- Training in KPI setting is most likely to help resolve gaps in advertiser capability, cited by 57% of respondents. Media ROI (46%) and briefing and evaluating agency work (46%) also remain important areas for capability building.
- The fastest-growing area of training is the demand for addressing capability gaps in Ad Tech and Mar Tech (42% in 2022 vs 26% in 2019).
- Advertiser respondents highlighted a need for training in how media agencies work; in turn, half of agency respondents highlighted a need for improved advertiser capabilities in running media pitches.
Key quote
“[There is] a clear opportunity for progressive advertisers to invest in robust media capability building programmes and boost the accountability of media as a significant driver of business growth” – Matt Gill, Senior Consultant at ID Comms.
Sourced from ID Comms
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