27 January 2010
26 January 2010
Relationships and Music money
There is a good article on the Procurement Leaders website blog about the importance of experience, knowledge and relationship building in the marketing procurement arena.
I do think we need to look at the training that exists out there as mentioned in an earlier blog. We have seen companies such as Diageo train up marketers to be purchasing to fill the skill gap. But as one of my contacts said to me yesterday the training that has existed is very 'numpty and ABC..'. What exists for the more experienced buyer ? What in house training programs are in place to build up strong marketing procurement teams that can take over the world (sorry getting carried away there!). May be we should make 2010 the year of working together to get some really good solid training programs together - all thoughts and comments welcome.
Also just seen this on the BBC website re artists selling their songs to ad agencies, linking back to my posting on decoupling of TV production. Apparently US hip-hop star Pharrell Williams has advised new acts to approach ad agencies, ahead of record labels, to help launch their careers.
But Blur's Manager said that whilst Blur themselves have allowed their tracks to be used in commercials, he felt that artists should think very, very careful about how they associate with brands," There was a "great danger of music being 'corporatised'", he warned.
Blur's 1997 hit Song 2 has made the band 20 times as much money through use in ads, TV shows and film soundtracks than record sales, Mr Morrison revealed. Not bad eh ? 20 times more than record sales. I thought that was an amazing sum of money.
It is worth talking to any TV Production Consultants that you may use or someone like Leap Music to see what your options on when buying any time of 'well known / popular' music track.
I do think we need to look at the training that exists out there as mentioned in an earlier blog. We have seen companies such as Diageo train up marketers to be purchasing to fill the skill gap. But as one of my contacts said to me yesterday the training that has existed is very 'numpty and ABC..'. What exists for the more experienced buyer ? What in house training programs are in place to build up strong marketing procurement teams that can take over the world (sorry getting carried away there!). May be we should make 2010 the year of working together to get some really good solid training programs together - all thoughts and comments welcome.
Also just seen this on the BBC website re artists selling their songs to ad agencies, linking back to my posting on decoupling of TV production. Apparently US hip-hop star Pharrell Williams has advised new acts to approach ad agencies, ahead of record labels, to help launch their careers.
But Blur's Manager said that whilst Blur themselves have allowed their tracks to be used in commercials, he felt that artists should think very, very careful about how they associate with brands," There was a "great danger of music being 'corporatised'", he warned.
Blur's 1997 hit Song 2 has made the band 20 times as much money through use in ads, TV shows and film soundtracks than record sales, Mr Morrison revealed. Not bad eh ? 20 times more than record sales. I thought that was an amazing sum of money.
It is worth talking to any TV Production Consultants that you may use or someone like Leap Music to see what your options on when buying any time of 'well known / popular' music track.
22 January 2010
Tomorrow's World
Last night I attended the presentation of the annual financial survey by Kingston Smith W1. The report is called 'Financial Performance of marketing services companies'. This is for figures published for 2008 and from what they are predicting, the 2009 report (published this time next year) will make very different reading.
The whole report is 161 pages in total. They survey the top 50 independent UK marketing groups and also UK Quoted Groups and then analysis their financial standing by discipline (Digital, Advertising, Media Buying etc).
It is really interesting reading (it is too heavy to carry and read on the train !) and covers areas such as turnover, employment costs, operating profit, the key ratios that we like to look at such as employment costs: gross income, and the favourite bit - the Director's salaries (the highest one being paid £1.5m).
The sector by sector review is also really interesting. Media Buying and PR come out as doing well (in terms of profit margins) with direct marketing and digitial (surprisingly) have low returns of their margins.
Well worth the investment and a good source of data in terms of finanical status of some key agencies. I am not sure if you can buy it directly now, but here is a link to it on the KS website. Click here.
P.S. Just seen that Campaign have a four page spread on the report (page 24 - 22 January issue)
The whole report is 161 pages in total. They survey the top 50 independent UK marketing groups and also UK Quoted Groups and then analysis their financial standing by discipline (Digital, Advertising, Media Buying etc).
It is really interesting reading (it is too heavy to carry and read on the train !) and covers areas such as turnover, employment costs, operating profit, the key ratios that we like to look at such as employment costs: gross income, and the favourite bit - the Director's salaries (the highest one being paid £1.5m).
The sector by sector review is also really interesting. Media Buying and PR come out as doing well (in terms of profit margins) with direct marketing and digitial (surprisingly) have low returns of their margins.
Well worth the investment and a good source of data in terms of finanical status of some key agencies. I am not sure if you can buy it directly now, but here is a link to it on the KS website. Click here.
P.S. Just seen that Campaign have a four page spread on the report (page 24 - 22 January issue)
19 January 2010
Recouple, Decouple - new word needed
I had an interesting day today with all my meetings relating to third party production suppliers increasingly talking direct to clients. Something that we all know has been on the agenda for a few years, certainly in the press market. But the likes of Unilever, Boots and most recently Reckitt Benckiser have gone out into the market place for TV post production suppliers.
It is funny as in an area such as print, we have for many years, used print buying companies to buy print for us or gone direct to the paper mill if we are sourcing large volumes of paper. On press / artwork production, I think that around 70% of the top 100 advertisers have now deals direct with the suppliers. But Procurement getting involved in TV has been at a slower level. I don't want to open the old decoupling debate that was around a few years ago, but wonder why it is at a slower pace. All comments welcome of course.
I am also just finishing off some work for a client about press production, and what the view in the market place is on it. If anyone has 5 minutes, I would appreciate your views on this quick survey - http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N298LKP
It is funny as in an area such as print, we have for many years, used print buying companies to buy print for us or gone direct to the paper mill if we are sourcing large volumes of paper. On press / artwork production, I think that around 70% of the top 100 advertisers have now deals direct with the suppliers. But Procurement getting involved in TV has been at a slower level. I don't want to open the old decoupling debate that was around a few years ago, but wonder why it is at a slower pace. All comments welcome of course.
I am also just finishing off some work for a client about press production, and what the view in the market place is on it. If anyone has 5 minutes, I would appreciate your views on this quick survey - http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/N298LKP
13 January 2010
Back to Skool
I have been sent an email by the Chartered Institute of Marketing - the subject heading was 'Marketing and Sales Standards'. Interesting I thought and I read on. Their vision is for a comprehensive and robust qualification structure for the marketing profession (like our CIPS?).
One of their 5 reasons for looking at this is address any skills gaps and this includes commercial/business awareness (good point as I think it is an area that Marketing could develop as long as it doesn't do procurement out of a job !).
But my thoughts were that I hear more and more agencies asking the procurement person if they are CIPS qualified and indeeed I think quite a few agencies have become associate members of CIPS to get the 'inside track' on us. I only know of one agency that has a procurement person and he is going through his CIPS qualification.
My point being that procurement are asked and perhaps judged on the industry qualification, what about Marketing ? Is CIM a current must for marketing people ? I know many excellent Marketing people and I bet that they are not CIM qualified. Are CIM trying to drive the qualification structure for the good of the marketing industry or for CIM ? All comments welcome and I have the link to the survey, if anyone would like it.
Interesting stats in the mailer
One of their 5 reasons for looking at this is address any skills gaps and this includes commercial/business awareness (good point as I think it is an area that Marketing could develop as long as it doesn't do procurement out of a job !).
But my thoughts were that I hear more and more agencies asking the procurement person if they are CIPS qualified and indeeed I think quite a few agencies have become associate members of CIPS to get the 'inside track' on us. I only know of one agency that has a procurement person and he is going through his CIPS qualification.
My point being that procurement are asked and perhaps judged on the industry qualification, what about Marketing ? Is CIM a current must for marketing people ? I know many excellent Marketing people and I bet that they are not CIM qualified. Are CIM trying to drive the qualification structure for the good of the marketing industry or for CIM ? All comments welcome and I have the link to the survey, if anyone would like it.
Interesting stats in the mailer
- The marketing profession, which includes marketing communications, is a significant professional group within the UK economy across all four nations
- It employs approximately 592,000 people, which represents around 1.9% of the UK’s workforce
- It is estimated that approximately 90% of the marketing workforce is employed in England, 6% in Scotland, 3% in Wales and 1% in Northern Ireland
06 January 2010
A bit about technology
Hope those of you that are snow bound like me are making the most of catching up on any backlog from the festive break.
One of the things that I was really surprised about when I became a 'poacher' or was it a 'gamekeeper' when I moved agency side, was the lack of technological systems and processes that an agency had in place, both for its own internal use and for the interaction with clients. I think it is improving a bit but it seems to be more lead from the client.
Systems such as Digital Asset Management systems are being used more and more in the back of the decoupling of press production activity from mainstream agencies. But what about process management ? Are there systems in place that can improve the efficiencies and therefore the costs long term of the briefing to the final approval stage? Are clients looking at companies such as BEAM, Adstream and Adgistics to improve their supply to the market. Be good to get any one's thoughts on this topic. I know that some of it does come down to budget and where does the cost sit - it is a Purchasing initiative but requires investment from Marketing.
What prompted me was that I have just come across this Event in February and have booked to attend - Technology for Advertising and Marketing. Be good to see what is out there for both clients and agencies to consider. Click here for the link to the event.
One of the things that I was really surprised about when I became a 'poacher' or was it a 'gamekeeper' when I moved agency side, was the lack of technological systems and processes that an agency had in place, both for its own internal use and for the interaction with clients. I think it is improving a bit but it seems to be more lead from the client.
Systems such as Digital Asset Management systems are being used more and more in the back of the decoupling of press production activity from mainstream agencies. But what about process management ? Are there systems in place that can improve the efficiencies and therefore the costs long term of the briefing to the final approval stage? Are clients looking at companies such as BEAM, Adstream and Adgistics to improve their supply to the market. Be good to get any one's thoughts on this topic. I know that some of it does come down to budget and where does the cost sit - it is a Purchasing initiative but requires investment from Marketing.
What prompted me was that I have just come across this Event in February and have booked to attend - Technology for Advertising and Marketing. Be good to see what is out there for both clients and agencies to consider. Click here for the link to the event.
04 January 2010
2010 - the future is measurable
I have been thinking about the key areas that the industry needs to focus on this year. One of the recurring themes is ROI / measurement and relationship management.
I am working on a potential project that is focused on the Press Cuttings part of the PR category. For me it is that the stakeholders should not be relying on this service as the key measure of the sole indicator of the success or otherwise of their investment in PR. It is essential that measurable public relations objectives are set. This will tell them where they are starting from and where the PR programme is heading.
At a basic level they need to look at six steps to set up these objectives up:
o Define the objectives
o Determine the criteria
o Select a benchmark (what does success look like ? to the stakeholders and procurement)
o Select a measurement tool
o Compare results with objectives
o Modify campaign
The other part of measurement is the 'it is good to talk'. It is important that all key supplier relationships are audited. At one of my companies, we invested in a third party relationship audit company to provide a 360 degree audit of us (you can also do it yourself as well) and then our three top agencies - Media, Advertising and Brand. The cost was then split 4 ways as it was important that everyone had an equal say in the process. The feedback and the agreed action planning worked really well. The 2 suppliers I would recommend in this area are Aprais and Relationship Audits and Management.
A lot of the time the results of the audit can then feed into a Bonus or Payment By Results structure. I know that some companies in the Telco and FMCG sectors are rolling these programs out globally to all their key agency relationships. Be interesting to see the data in a few years time of 'investment in the process' versus ' benefits gained in the long term'.
I am working on a potential project that is focused on the Press Cuttings part of the PR category. For me it is that the stakeholders should not be relying on this service as the key measure of the sole indicator of the success or otherwise of their investment in PR. It is essential that measurable public relations objectives are set. This will tell them where they are starting from and where the PR programme is heading.
At a basic level they need to look at six steps to set up these objectives up:
o Define the objectives
o Determine the criteria
o Select a benchmark (what does success look like ? to the stakeholders and procurement)
o Select a measurement tool
o Compare results with objectives
o Modify campaign
The other part of measurement is the 'it is good to talk'. It is important that all key supplier relationships are audited. At one of my companies, we invested in a third party relationship audit company to provide a 360 degree audit of us (you can also do it yourself as well) and then our three top agencies - Media, Advertising and Brand. The cost was then split 4 ways as it was important that everyone had an equal say in the process. The feedback and the agreed action planning worked really well. The 2 suppliers I would recommend in this area are Aprais and Relationship Audits and Management.
A lot of the time the results of the audit can then feed into a Bonus or Payment By Results structure. I know that some companies in the Telco and FMCG sectors are rolling these programs out globally to all their key agency relationships. Be interesting to see the data in a few years time of 'investment in the process' versus ' benefits gained in the long term'.
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