MRG Conference: Innovation And Branding Are Key To Successful Media

Mike Kirkham, former chief executive of TNS, was back on an industry platform this morning to address the MRG conference in Vienna.

He illustrated how innovation and branding were key in the business world if companies are to be successful, appealing to investors and develop a sustainable corporate advantage; and he cited Sky, Tesco, I-pod, Google and eBay as examples of mastery of both.

Relating this back to the media industry, Kirkham analysed the industry media research bodies saying they were “similar still to the early 80s, with some but generally little innovation.” This is not because the bodies themselves are resistant to change, “the issue is structural,” he said.

The industry bodies are there to provide a trading currency and a planning database, and whilst they continue to do the first, it is becoming almost impossible for them to manage the second, he asserted. Each covers a single medium and it “suits media owners to retain this situation, because it leads to higher estimates of audiences and the media owners do largely fund these services,” he said.

“Unless there can be a change of structure, unless the JICS can find ways of greater co-operation at a structural level, the media planning function becomes more and more difficult to fulfil and less relevant to advertisers.” The obvious end result, said Kirkham, is more proprietary research addressing the needs of individual companies, not the industry as a whole.

Media Research Group: 01980 862 248 www.mrg.org.uk