MRG Conference 1997 – Dublin – A Critique
Fifteen months ago after a splendidly sociable few days in Barcelona at the 1995 MRG Conference, I provided a brief critique of the key issues emanating from (with a few exceptions) a rather disappointing set of conference papers.
In the period since I heard the same view from many others, so I think it is only fair to state early in this synopsis of Dublin, 1997 that this was one of the best conferences of recent years – many “regulars” thought easily the best of the last three.
I concluded that November 1995 round-up by suggesting that the MRG Committee should “back themselves” when it came to selecting speakers who understood their subject fully. Largely they did, and it paid off. If the presentations were not in every case as punchy and lively as the sales directors might have delivered in Barcelona, the content was far more satisfying.
1995 saw an industry largely satisfied with the research it pays for; “no BARB-bashing or NRS-knocking this time”, we reported. 1997 re-iterated that. As Peter Bowman suggested the industry has “grown up”. Once again it was only sections readership in the national press which caused real dissent – this time direct from the IPA, with criticism targeted straight between the eyes of the NPA. Will we have all the sections data we need by ’99 ? It did not sound hopeful.
“Fragmentation” was the word of the conference, with digital addressed sensibly and conservatively and the Internet regularly referred to but disappointingly not discussed in any depth. It would have been good to hear from the media owner giants – Time Warner, News Corp, the BBC or even Microsoft, whom one can envisage being high on the agenda two years on. I gather at least one of these turned down the chance to speak.
It also seemed we have moved on from industry research issues to embrace further bespoke research, and now to clamour for the key measure – advertising effectiveness. The only client present was willing to pay, or contribute to his agency’s costs, to get to this, and, judging by the number of papers in which this was a major theme, everyone is agreed that this is no longer just the most talked-about measure – it now requires that the media department does something about supplying such data to clients. Congratulations to the MRG for recognising this when they put the programme together. Millward Brown, Impact and the like must now be licking their lips in anticipation as proven with the BMP/Laser paper which took the David Aitchison award.
Joint projects between agencies and clients or media owners still appear to be on the increase.
As a result of the 1995 conference, I suggested that “the corny communications planner/buyer/researcher tag is likely to become more evident and accepted”. No ground-breaking prediction that, but Martin Sorrell took us further with this theme, as he idealised a business world where the roles of management consultants and media researchers or strategists could now come ever closer, with clients turning towards WPP for (highly-priced) advice where they previously bolted off to McKinseys.
If this were the case would we have a different type of researcher, or does it require the current day model to weld all that detailed communications/media knowledge with a wider business perspective (see the boss today, get yourself a sponsored MBA course now).
With Johnathan Durden anticipating space for a few entrepreneurial researchers to set up, sell out and cash in, and Gary Duckworth telling the conference that if he were starting again he would like it be in the media research industry, it would seem that the researcher’s star is rising.
Sorrell was clearly grateful to his research companies for their consistent, growing and (almost) recession-proof contributions to the WPP coffers, and so it is market researchers not just media that he includes in his vision. But one gathers that he sees media at the centre of this, and presumably it is a view he has held for some time, given the the current media research strategist at Berkeley Square has arrived via the Henley Centre.
To borrow from one of the Advertising Effectiveness case studies, for researchers, it would indeed seem ‘the future is bright’, the future is…… well Walker (James) – or at least those of his ilk.
Derek Jones
For a critique of the Barcelona MRG conference, subscribers should click MRG Conference 1995 – Barcelona – Round-Up.