Five questions with Thinkbox’s Lindsey Clay
The CEO of Thinkbox reflects on the TV marketing body’s biggest success this year, considers how TV’s adspend recovery might shape up, and outlines what she thinks makes for a good leader in this industry
Lindsey – what do you think has been your biggest success this year?
Normally I’d crowbar half a dozen successes into an answer like this. I’d innocently claim that I just couldn’t choose one, vintage year, spoilt for choice, please forgive me.
But this year there really has been a clear winner: our TV Masters online training course.
TV Masters stands out for a load of reasons: it was made almost entirely during lockdown and with the team working remotely – all the planning, writing, filming, editing, and endless back and forth polishing. And the team had never done anything like it before, so we were naturally anxious about achieving what we wanted.
But we did it. And we smashed our annual recruitment target in the first week, with 2,000 people signing up, from CEOs to new starters. Obviously, we’re only at the beginning. We’ll refine, update and improve it constantly. But it couldn’t have had a more challenging genesis, which makes its successful launch all the more gratifying. I’m even more proud of the team than usual, and that’s saying something.
Advertising spend across all media channels has plummeted since Covid took hold in the UK, including spend on TV. In Q4, TV is expected to be down -2.7% year-on-year, according to the latest AA/Warc report. Are advertisers making the right decision in cutting spend, and how do you expect TV’s recovery to shape up?
No one in their right mind would criticise any brand that cut or deferred spend when the pandemic started. Marketers’ jobs were harder than ever. Entire sectors were shut down. Supply chains were disrupted. And that’s before you get to the fact that they were already having to plan for Brexit. It wasn’t so much an unparalleled time as a time when it felt like we’d moved to a parallel universe.
So, given these circumstances, I would say that TV’s performance has been more than encouraging. The AA/WARC forecast has TV as the best performer in Q4 (by which I mean least worst). In fact, they predict broadcaster VOD will be the only type of advertising to grow year-on-year in Q4.
Obviously, TV has benefited from the closure of cinemas and the challenges lockdown has posed for outdoor. But TV has also proved its worth in the pandemic. Both socially, as a source of vital entertainment, much-needed escapism, and trusted news; and commercially, as broadcasters were nimble-footed, increased their flexibility, and many advertisers took advantage of the incredible price TV was offering – some of which had never tried TV before.
In terms of TV’s recovery, promising forecasts are clearly nice but I’m not going to rely on them too much. What does give me confidence though is the clear sense from advertisers that they want what TV now offers, which is the best of both worlds: mass, brand-building power and emotional bonds with audiences, plus the more intimate and targeted data and tech led advanced advertising opportunities.
It’s also good that advertisers have got more pandemic match fit, as it were, as the year has worn on. Whereas the early days of the pandemic and the first lockdown knocked everyone sideways, now they’re more prepared to operate in the parallel universe we’re in. Advertising as a whole should benefit from that.
As a judge for the inaugural year of Mediatel’s Media Leaders Awards, what do you think makes a strong and successful leader in this industry?
There’s no one model of leadership – and we’re still battling against an unhealthy expectation of what leadership looks like that we’ve inherited from the past. It’s also tougher to lead than ever, and hard to be a visionary leader when our vision is so clouded by uncertainty.
What’s great is to see new role models emerging in the media industry; leaders with empathy who prioritise more than just commercial success.
For me, the best leaders are demonstrating a duty of care to their staff and their customers. They’re showing they can adapt quickly without sacrificing principles. They’re embracing diversity, championing inclusion, and challenging discrimination. It’s a lot to live up to, but the minimum required.
What are your thoughts on some of the recent developments in media measurement – from the WFA & Project Origin’s plans to develop cross-platform video measurement, to the debate around adding ‘attention’ as a new metric?
Measurement is the cornerstone of our industry. Cross-media measurement is an important issue and Project Origin is a noble cause. Ambition is one thing, of course, but the devil is in the detail: how do you design a methodology that’s practical, rigorous, isn’t too reductive, and fairly represents all? We’ll have to wait and see.
Meanwhile, BARB is well on the way to solving the complex technological and methodological challenges in cross video measurement. Hopefully, online video companies will come on board to enhance this initiative, which will adhere to the high standards of TV measurement. And the broadcasters are also collaborating on C-Flight, which will give advertisers and agencies de-duplicated reach and frequency across both linear TV and broadcaster VOD.
As for adding attention as a new media metric – including, importantly, partial attention – it’s a very attractive proposition. As Professor Nelson-Field has said, not all opportunities to see are created equal.
It would be great to have a robust quality layer added to the quantity layers of measurement, especially in any cross-media measurement. It would reduce the risk of commoditisation. And TV would benefit, as it performs very strongly in all attention economy studies.
In a recent interview with Mediatel News, Sarah Baumann, MD at VaynerMedia, said her number one hope for the ad industry is that “one day soon we stop having to explain that you can build brands and drive business results on digital platforms and – dare I say it – without TV”. What are your thoughts on that?
Well, that’s undoubtedly the number one hope for a company like VaynerMedia. And I’m sure it is possible, but all the evidence of what does build brands and drive business results suggests it’s much more likely with TV than without.
I can recommend a very good free TV training course if they want to expand their skills in this area…