A dark room and lots of cigarettes
Why isn’t there a trading system to bridge the gap between agencies and publishers, asked News International’s Patricia Kill at MediaTel Group’s ‘Why Aren’t We All Trading Electronically?’ event at Specific Media on Wednesday.
Kill claims that she has been trying to get the print industry to work together to develop a common system to trade press for 10 years. She is now confident that in two years time they will have a work-flow system across print and digital.
Referring to a trading system as a “no-brainer” in order to improve efficiencies, Kill said it has been a struggle in print and the industry has “gone beyond waiting for it”. Kill blames the delay on the lack of collaboration between publishers and agencies, who remain split over a variety of solutions.
Kill admitted that it may be necessary for News International to look a developing internal systems, while agencies develop their own solutions too, but emphasised the need for “the bit in the middle” – a work-flow system to join the two. With regard to that “bit” she talked about the need to be unified and was adamant that News International is very clear about working alongside other publishers and agencies to make this happen.
“Why are people happy to develop work-flow tools that take information so far but not bridging the gap to allow booking information to flow between agencies and publishers?”, she asked, complaining that the lack of progress in this area is a core problem.
“Trading across print and digital has to happen for us,” Kill added. “News International is no longer just a press company”.
News International has recently announced a £3 million investment into an “automated advertising sales system to deal with multi-platform, campaign-led business, which will ultimately result in customers receiving one invoice no matter what the platform”; while The Guardian has recently installed a new internal system.
Publishers have jointly funded research via the Newspaper Publishers’ Association’s Futures Research Group, which is expected to deliver results early next year.
Douglas McArthur, managing consultant at Planning for Results, talked about the NPA’s role in pushing for a common press system. “Systems that work and are useful are driven by industry organisations. If you want this to happen with press, someone needs to make it a priority.”
Google’s Tanzil Bukhari (head of buyer relations, EMEA, DoubleClick Ad Exchange) observed that the industry is having the same conversations today as it did in 2007. He did, however, praise publishers for understanding the value of using an ad exchange to manage digital inventory electronically, but said there is confusion because “too many people are stuck doing process tasks”.
Talking specifically about Google’s Ad Exchange, Bukhari said the online system could not be used for print – and saw a two-tier approach when it came to electronic process between online and print. Kill was quick to say that she’s under no illusion that Google will suddenly develop a system for print. “They have no passion to do it… all eyes are on the future.”
However, the agency panellists Jim Marshall (Aegis) and Alan Brydon (MPG Media Contacts) were far from convinced. Brydon felt that it was just not important enough to agencies. “Agencies operate on priority, which is normally winning new business and servicing clients,” he said. Both Marshall and Brydon also questioned whether a press system would improve efficiencies in the way that Kill claims.
As to a system that went “all the way” and posted available inventory – “it is never going to happen,” Marshall said.
At the shop-floor of trading, Brydon did agree that press is a trading model which needs to see change. “We have the most ludicrous trading system in the world… but we’re millions of miles away from moving from scc trading,” he said – despite the recent efforts by News International to head this towards a CPT model.
I was disappointed by the lack of energy at the seminar on the agency side for process improvements, although not surprised. There simply isn’t an established mechanism for media owners and agencies to identify and collaborate on systems that will leverage efficiencies to the benefit of both sides.
Our own experience in sponsoring the link between CARIA and agency systems (in the form of DDS) has been that getting the project under way took far longer than it should have done. However, the result has undoubtedly been worthwhile for agencies; the two that are piloting the link with us are reporting significant time-savings from the elimination of re-keying with tasks that used to take a day taking just 40 minutes.
The debate showed that there is a real opportunity here but also a huge amount of inertia. Throw in a modicum of distrust between media owners and agencies as well as between different suppliers who may need to work together, potential disagreement over technical solutions and funding issues and it’s surprising that there is any progress at all. Yet the economic climate provides a burning platform for generating efficiencies, which can be re-deployed into the priority areas that were identified on the agency side at the seminar.
For what it’s worth, here are some tips to anyone considering work in this area based on our own experience:
None of the above is a critique of our partners in the CARIA link. On the contrary, it has been great to work with them to develop an interface that is already starting to deliver efficiencies. This could not have been possible without the commitment and hard work of IMD Optimad, DDS and the two agencies that are currently piloting the system. We’ll be rolling it out to more agencies for testing and then go live in the new year.