Commentary

New World Of Data Crunching Still Needs Human Touch

The way we buy and sell media has changed more in the last five years than it had in the previous twenty. The advent of programmatic trading, automated processes and tech platforms adds huge time savings and efficiencies so all is well with the world. We can all sit back and enjoy a glass of wine. We’re media people, after all. Aren’t we?

I recently chaired the Brightroll Video Summit at ad:tech London. During a panel of the great and the good from agency land, I noted a subtle shift. Yes, whilst there can be no doubt that programmatic buying and selling such as RTB are going to help automate processes and, with dual benefits to clients and media owners in terms of delivering control, efficiency and ultimately effectiveness, several people sounded a note of caution. 

We still need sales people talking to buyers, we still need relationships, and we still need experience. The problem is that we as an industry may have lost of a lot of those traditional skills. So we are going to need to look elsewhere. As WPP CEO Martin Sorrell recently put it, we are now "math men not mad men". 

I spoke to James Webb, commercial director at the leading recruitment consultancy Propel. He told me, “In regards to increasing importance being placed on technical skill sets, this shows no signs whatsoever of abating, and a premium is being paid for these skills. However, people skills remain integral to the operation of the industry, people still buy from people, so where sales is concerned, people skills are key. 

“We are now increasingly being asked, by ad tech vendors, to find sales people who have skills in selling business critical enterprise level technology platforms. So while the technology itself is, of course, critical, it is the personal skills needed to sell these platforms that are important. There is a considerable difference in the sort of personal skills being sought by these organisations. Sales cycles are often much longer, and the contracts being competed for are of very high value, and can extend for years, across multiple territories”.

And it’s not just the vendors. Lyndsay Pattison, CEO of Maxus UK, recently said, “What we're seeing now is media planners taking on a different role. Buyers used to delight in securing the best deals and getting the most bang for their clients' buck. Now, we are hiring data-literate people from diverse grad courses and diverse companies and actively seeking out people who find that same delight in data. We can think of them as 'mathematicians'. They have a conceptual understanding of this new world, and they need to be open to learning continuously on the job – as we all do in our rapidly changing industry — but applying new sets of skills that many of us left behind at school”.

Pattison’s view is echoed somewhat by Simon Hayne, UK MD of IgnitionOne. Simon is one of media’s good guys and has been around long enough to observe the changing culture. “We need to find a happy medium between Don Draper and Don Zagier. Digital media is based on the understanding and assimilation of technology, as a result you can’t deny that digital media has become driven by data and technology. However, the ‘media’ portion of the piece also needs to be understood. That is based on intuition and experience – but is intrinsically a human interaction. Currently, there are too many people who are digital or media; for the industry to evolve, we need to develop professionals who are a combination of the two. For this to occur, we need to respect both facets but realise that they are interdependent”.

So does all this change the culture of our industry? Or does it actually broaden its appeal? When I started in publishing over 20 years ago, media sales was the Foreign Legion of careers. Nobody truly wanted to be there and for many it was the last resort. Now, it seems, the skills required mean that a great phone voice, the ability not to lose heart after the 10th consecutive “no” and an ability to make a lunch last four hours are not what employers are looking for. 

However, in this new world of sober data crunching and long hours gazing at a screen, I hope there is still room for the human touch.
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