Media’s strategic role in integrating marketing functions for brands

As marketing’s ecosystem continues to evolve and the boundaries of marketing functions dissolve, media is emerging as a strategic force to connect those functions together.

This was the key takeaway from The Future of the Media Organisation report, developed by Mediasense and the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA). The research surveyed 56 of the worlds biggest companies, who represent $52bn in annual media spend.

The report highlights how media is no longer a siloed channel or downstream function. Instead, it is tying together creative, data, ecommerce, content and performance to maximise consumer experiences.

Jack Shearring, head of transformation at Mediasense, said: “It’s much more blurry where media starts and stops.

“That’s a result of brands trying to think more holistically about how they reach their customers.”

However, according to the report, just one in three companies believe they currently have the right media organisation in place with roles established globally, regionally and locally in a continuous state of flux.

Media moves up the value chain

In the wake of AI, shifting agency relations and the merging of traditional lines between brand, media and performance, media has become a lead integrator.

This is reflected within the research, which found 84% of companies say media is now better integrated with data and insights teams.

Additionally, 73% reported stronger integration of media with creative and brand functions. While, 65% say media now encompasses content and influencer marketing.

However, due to this shift, media leaders are now expected to connect these differing insights.

“The differentiator is no longer how cheaply you can buy media through platforms like Meta and Google,” Shearring said.”It’s how well you bring functions together to create better customer experiences.”

This requires media leaders to be data-literate and to centre this within their decisions.

“It’s not enough anymore for data teams to send over insights that go straight to an agency,” Shearring added.

“Media leaders need to understand the data themselves and be comfortable articulating those.”

However, the research showed just 25% of marketers believe they have the right media capabilities today and only 19% said they feel ready to scale AI across media investments.

Also, according to the survey, only 45% of respondents said media has a clearly defined role within the wider business organisation or business strategy.

The report identifies this as a clear gap in the structural and cultural integration of media, which poses a risk to the authority and influence media has, despite it being a key player across marketing functions.

The agency role is shifting

With tighter integration a key pursuit of brands moving forward, many are wanting to bring key strategic capabilities in-house, especially audience planning and media strategy.

These have traditionally been agency strongholds, however with the report showcasing 46% of brands are planning to bring strategy and audience planning in-house, agencies need to expand their offerings.

Ryan Kangisser, chief strategy officer at mediasense outlined that customer centricity is “no longer a strategic endeavour,” highlighting how brands are “structuring themselves around the consumer in a more intentional way.”

Despite this, only 21% expect to do the same for media execution and 53% of brands actively disagree with fully in-house media execution.

While it is clear agencies remain vital, especially for execution, scale and trading power, this alone is not enough, and they need to shift their models.

Shearring said: “There’s an opportunity for agencies to act as transformation partners.”

He added in order to do this, agencies need to move beyond transactions and into more of a consultative role, to help brands navigate this change.

“The challenge is how to that credibly, agencies have to break away from their own vested interests and think more broadly,” said Shearring.

The value of the regional layer

The regional layer, which traditionally bridged the gap between global strategy and local execution, was shown in the report to be eroding.

Notably, 49% of companies have global media leaders, but just 16% have equivalent regional roles.

Local teams also still have the most specialist roles who are typically responsible for end-to-end activation.

However, Shearring outlined how often brands try to create a global strategy of frameworks that set the standard and ensure consistency across all their markets, they then try to connect this to local teams.

He said: “That can work in practice but if you’re a global team that has 60 markets to deal with, sometimes you do need that regional team. It’s more about the purpose of that regional layer.”

Emphasis was placed on developing models to prevent local teams being left in the lurch and having to improvise, which the report noted as a creator of inconsistency.

Five key areas to focus on

The report outlines five key areas where media leadership must focus on:

• Media must be rooted in growth strategy: Only 35% said media’s impact on growth is understood outside the media team.
• Integration is key: AI is levelling execution, but the competitive edge comes from connecting brand, content, commerce and data well.
• Capabilities matter more than size: Skills in measurement, AI and audience are more important than team size, and upskilling in this should be prioritised to create multiplier effects.
• Rethink the global-local balance: Emphasis on regional teams is being reduced to save costs, therefore, brands need to create new connections between global and local platforms.
• Redefine the agency relationship: Agencies remain key for execution and scale, but they need to develop to be able to partner with brands on integration and innovation, not strategy.