Commentary

Starting From Scratch: Pritchard's 5-Point Plan For A New Media Supply Chain

Procter & Gamble Chief Brand Officer Marc Pritchard told those gathered at the ANA Media Conference today that it’s time to create a new digital media supply chain because retrofitting and other short term remedies just aren’t enough to fix all the problems—brand safety, transparency and privacy issues among them--with the current system.

That’s right, time to start over. “Rather than calling for more retrofitting and clean-up, I’d like to offer a new approach,” Pritchard said.

“It’s time to invest our brainpower into an ecosystem that builds in quality, civility, transparency, privacy, and control – from the very start.  A new media supply chain that levels the playing field and operates in a way that is clean, efficient, accountable, and properly moderated – for everyone involved.”

Well that sounds pretty ambitious. The ANA issued a brief sketch of Pritchard’s five-point plan for the new supply chain.

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Elevate Quality. He urged marketers to partner with companies and buy media from places where the content quality is known, controlled, and consistent with a company’s values.

If it were my company (assuming I had one, which I don’t) that would eliminate certain knuckleheads that like to think of themselves as YouTube stars like Pew-Die-Pie (who may have been an inspiration to the monster that slaughtered dozens in New Zealand earlier this year) and the chowder head that put footage of a Japanese suicide victim on his channel a few years back. 

From my standpoint it would also eliminate Facebook Live, which enabled the aforementioned monster to stream at least part of his atrocity as he was carrying it out.

But every company has different standards, right? Which is part of the reason the current system has so many issues.

Promote Civility. Pritchard said that productive standards of “decorum” are essential in the new media supply chain because while free speech is a right, civility is a responsibility.  In the new media supply chain, marketers should work with those companies that demonstrate they are using their voices on their platforms in a civil and responsible way.

Again the question is who makes the call? Put 50 marketers in a room to hash out the details and you’ll come out with 50 different opinions.

Level The Playing Field.   Most media companies are close to delivering a base level of transparency, but Pritchard said it is time to raise the bar to deliver transparency through measurement across all media platforms. 

Oh, I think that time is long past due. But if you’re the 800-pound media gorilla in the room, there’s not a lot of leverage many marketers have on that front, P&G being one exception of course.

Simplify Privacy.  Consumer data is a foundation for how marketers do business today, and a foundation for consumer trust is how marketers handle privacy.  P&G is seeking one common privacy standard across the United States. Pritchard said P&G is actively working with the Privacy for America coalition, including the four major trade associations who are uniting to align our industry, and seeking national legislation that puts the consumer at the center.   

Why not a global privacy standard? GDPR is a good start isn’t it? While we’re at it, let’s make all data hack-proof.

Take Control.  Marketers must take control of their own destiny. Okay that’s a bit cliché-ish but what Pritchard means is P&G is reevaluating its own media and agency ecosystem, making tough decisions about what functions should go in-house versus those that should remain outsourced. That’s been going on for a while at P&G and according to executives on recent earnings calls is saving the company hundreds of millions in marketing costs, with more to come.

That’s something agency’s need to think long and hard about as well.

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