• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, March 6, 2009

OMD’s Page Thompson opened the “Five Families” panel with a call for change in the upfront marketplace, asserting it is time to shift to an “ROI currency.”

While he said it’s unlikely Madison Avenue will be able to actually negotiate a “performance” based or ROI oriented upfront currency this year, he said agencies could at least start that conversation before they “plunk down $9 billion” in the network prime-time upfront again.

GroupM’s Irwin Gotlieb countered that an ROI currency is the wrong model for the upfront, because there are far too many variables â€" things like “creative â€" to account for that the networks cannot actually control.

“It’s not about bashing the networks,” Gotlieb said, adding that the key is really understanding where the “waste” is, and “cutting it out significantly.”