• by Cory Treffiletti , Featured Contributor, December 10, 2008

The current recession and "doom and gloom" surrounding the economy can be less than motivating (it pretty much sucks), but it does provide us with an opportunity that we cannot overlook. It gives us the chance to get our business in order and prepare for the next wave of growth.

The last time we had a slowdown, we dealt with some of the basic infrastructure and process issues that were affecting our business, creating efficiencies that were not there before the bubble burst. It allowed us time to lick our wounds, mend ourselves and prepare for the next battle (who doesn't love some gladiatorial references?). Issues like insertion order terms and conditions, inventory management and other headaches that were typically causes for concern regarding the scalability of our business were addressed. All that being said, it does still feel like we keep talking about the same kinds of issues now, as we did 10 to 15 years ago -- and this could be our chance to set things right!

My company recently did a survey of media planners and buyers and we came up with some very distinct issues that needed to be addressed. I wanted to share those issues with you so we can all be on the same page and work together to try and set the stage for even stronger growth after this recession rolls through its course.

The first issue that became apparent was reporting. Believe it or not, most agency teams still spend entirely too much time creating, formatting and reviewing reports for quality assurance. This is probably the single biggest secret on the agency side of the business and one of the largest sources of pain. This issue resides around the fact that there is no industry standard set of data to review, and most clients create their own formats and data points. In television advertising, the reporting format is rather standardized because most buyers use Donovan Data Systems -- and with a virtual monopoly we see an industry standard by default.

Our business is dominated by Atlas and The-Company-Formerly-Known-As-DoubleClick, so why can't we standardize a basic set of reports and metrics for evaluation? Any existing advertiser and any new advertiser should be able to evaluate a campaign against a basic set of data points. Standardizing those data points would go a long way toward improving the system of reporting, allowing agencies and analysts to focus on making the changes necessary for optimization rather than creating reporting formats. Less time for formatting, more time for actual strategy!

The second big issue to be addressed is training. It is not a new issue, and I've brought it up in this very column on a number of occasions. Entry-level employees on all sides need to be trained. The amount of back-and-forth that has to take place for either planners or salespeople to get one another up to speed on the basics, due to the lack of training, is crazy.

If our industry could agree on a set of standardized information necessary for employment, we could dramatically increase the caliber of our entry-level employees. First-year workers could be trained and we might even be able to go to the schools and universities directly and encourage them to begin the appropriate training as a standardized portion of the curriculum. I know when I graduated from Syracuse that I walked into the media world far more prepared than most because I had been trained at that level by people actually in the business. Why can't that be the norm?

Another important issue is emerging media: specifically, the "standardization" of these formats for integration into general online media planning and buying. Though these formats are still innovating, they are no longer "emerging." Mobile is real, online video is real and social media is real. We should be able to create standards for the types of opportunities afforded to marketers in these formats, and we should be able to determine basic metrics for judging success. Standardization would make it easier for dollars to be placed in these formats, thereby allowing for increasing spends against digital. Once again, less time trying to get the basics, more time on strategy.

The last issue is agency value and compensation models. This is the most difficult but probably the most important. As it stands right now, most agencies are compensated on the basis of doing what they do best, which is spending money. Spending money is not the most important component of a media strategy anymore. There are far too many other things you should be doing first (with the exception of search, which is still always the first thing to do).

Agencies are not, for the most part, compensated for strategic thinking. They are still mostly compensated by media commissions. I know, I know. I'll be getting a deluge of responses from agency people telling me they get compensated on retainer and that commissions are old school, but either you're lying or you're overstating. Gross and net are still commonplace for agency business. The basis is still on a media commission -- and in most cases that commission is disturbingly low, around 3% to 4%.

Of course, these are not the only issues -- but they do represent the most common gripes from that side of the fence. If we could establish a means of addressing these issues across the industry, great things would happen! We would be poised for growth once the economy rights itself. We could focus our time and attention on strategy rather than process.

What are you doing to further the cause?