Perverse agency-client incentives write media plans; evidence only gets to annotate, says Omar Oakes.
More Omar Oakes articles
One side of the Atlantic is hollowing out what makes its media culture special; the other is fighting to preserve it.
Advertisers should be dismayed. Instead, Google’s victory in court proves how deeply our industry has normalised monopoly.
Social platforms promised reach. What they delivered was dependence, collapse and lost audiences. Media owners, advertisers and agencies now face the same trap with AI.
What does it say about confidence in our industry that we still have to give marketers guidance about how to run fair pitch processes?
TV has earned trust because its numbers are verified, scrutinised and benchmarked. Social media? Not so much. Google needs to decide where YouTube stands.
WPP’s new CEO has an extraordinary CV. But Rose’s appointment signals a deeper crisis in advertising: the people running it no longer believe it’s a creative business.
We ban smartphones from our kids, but design media plans that depend on them. If mobile screen time has now overtaken TV, isn’t it finally time to do something about this contradiction?
If the job of running an agency holding company has become performative, constrained and algorithmic, why pretend it requires a human?
This is why human-led content needs a compass more than ever: values can’t be faked. You can’t prompt your way to perspective.