Martin Albrecht

Articles by Martin All articles by Martin

• Open Up! Making The Case For Open Sourcing in MAD on 07/11/2017
  

  Clients do not care about the logos on the business cards of their agencies as long as they are the best and they work together. This is why Sir Martin Sorrell of WPP is right when he says: "The best solution that I think the clients want is the best people working on their business." Here's where he is wrong.

• 5 Takeaways From The ANA Financial Management Conference in Marketing Daily on 05/24/2016
  

  Lots of new energy and many familiar faces. Yet, despite all of new the attention, very few "sparks" flew (where's John Mandel hiding?).

Comments by Martin All comments by Martin

• Media Ratings Auditor To Assess Agency Media Audits, MRC Forms Working Group by Joe Mandese (MediaDailyNews on 04/04/2016)
  

  This is fantastic: it is an audit of auditers of neutral advisers. Is there still anybody out there that thinks that trust between advertisers and agencies is NOT an issue?

• What Trust Exactly Is VW Hoping To Win Back? by Sean Hargrave (London Blog on 09/23/2015)
  

  What Volkswagen and the transparency debate have in commonI appreciate your take on the low level of industry trust, but think you are missing three essential points.First, I disagree that lab tests and comparisons are of no value because their results don't reflect everyday figures. While I would agree no soccer mom has ever succeeded in fitting 560 liters worth of luggage into a Mercedes station wagon, the value of lab tests are in their relative comparison more so than in them generating realistic every day results. Just because the absolute figures of say a fuel efficiency lab test are meaningless, doesn't mean the results are not helping consumers make an educated choice.Secondly, I think you are running a very cynical argument here: even if you conclude that the test is valueless because of its lack of reflecting realistic everyday figures, it does not mean it is ok to cheat: in other words: just because no ordinary man can run 100m in 10 seconds anyway, doesn't mean that Olympians are ok to use illegal performance enhancing drugs.Finally: the level of shock this deceit has produced around the world proves your argument wrong: because consumers and governments have trusted the auto industry so much is why they will not forget this one so easily.This crisis is about the values we have as a society and the responsibility we have beyond our shareholders. The worst outcome of this crisis is that more people feel invited to a logic that goes like this: the less I am trusted, the less I need to worry about cheating. Sounds familiar? Yes: just look at the transparency debate in the media industry.

• The Five Reasons For The Media Agency Pitch Avalanche by Maarten Albarda (Online Spin on 06/08/2015)
  

  Love your last sentence: "If you truly want a different outcome, change the ingredients!" - I understand that for a proper pitch, you need comparability, but it is beyond me how this necessity limits every single marketer in every single pitch to choose between five different shades of vanilla every three years. Open up, people!

• The Wolf Of Madison Ave. by Maarten Albarda (Online Spin on 08/10/2015)
  

  Hi there Maarten - thank you for your inspiring and bold thoughts on the state of the industry. Having pioneered a completely different model ourselves for the last 7 years (self-imposed, third-party audited transparency) I know that profitability can be a struggle competing for talent, technology and of course winning clients in the first place. Do you think that clients are as open towards new models as they should be? Sometimes I wish they would whine less about the status quo and instead insist on / incentivize the new.Thanks!Martin

• And The Media Network Of The Year Award Goes To...No One, Cannes Has Shelved It by Steve McClellan (MAD on 06/01/2015)
  

  Guys, seriously: do you realize how funny this is?A) They replaced the Media Agency OTY with the Media Network OTY. That in itself is funny enough: Hello, that's like awarding the "Vanilla Ice Cream Of The Year." Oh: too bad for the Strawberry and Chocolate flavors, I guess... B) They are shelving the award, because they first want to "review the methodology with the industry". Fantastic, that's like insisting that the poodles, terriers and beagles get some say in who gets to take the trophy home at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show...Hilarious. Thanks for making my day.

• Coty Wants Five Months To Pay Its Agency Bills by Steve McClellan (MAD on 04/14/2015)
  

  @Ed: agreed, "obscene" discloses my personal disgust with a business model, whose self-destructive effects can be witnessed in exactly the move that Coty - and before them Mars (http://bit.ly/1gq3oPV); P&G (http://bit.ly/1E5HAoj) and AB-InBev (http://bit.ly/1OiMX38) - has just made. But the fact is, most of WPP's clients' CFOs would be overjoyed to have profitability anywhere near WPP's 30%.And while we are talking about making money: you know what is also at least strange if not obscene: go ahead and google Europe's best paid manager and every single ranking will show Martin Winterkorn of VW with his 16MMEUR pay in 2014. If I would be a client of WPP I would be really irritated to learn of Sir Martin's pay of 56MMEUR in 2014. (http://bit.ly/1DLEbcn). How come that never gets into the rankings? If you do the math: it means that Martin Winterkorn only gets a measly 80TEUR for each billion of Volkswagen's turnover (200BNEUR), while Sir Martin's package gives him exactly 50 times (!) that amount (4MMEUR) for everyone one billion EUR worth of turnover at WBB (15BNEUR).Fine, maybe that is not "obscene" and sure, I am just a greedy media planner, but the last thing I feel like doing is blaming the procurement folks at Coty for trying to hold on to their money. What we need is a move by all three sides of the industry: clients, media, agencies, to move to a different model that isn't just fair to clients with the clout of a Coty: With transparency, everybody wins and agencies would compete on the intelligence of their advice, not based on their financial clout to make good money on clients DESPITE their 120 day terms.

• Coty Wants Five Months To Pay Its Agency Bills by Steve McClellan (MAD on 04/14/2015)
  

  I think Coty has a valid point: they believe that Advertising is a cost, not an investment, so they are not asking for differentiating comms, much less for intelligent advice. They are looking at agencies as resellers of media inventory. Which is a fair perspective if you follow the recent hoopla about agencies making obscene amounts of money behind clients' backs. So why wouldn't Coty try to squeeze at least some value back from the agencies. It is a very logical financial suggestion and it is too easy to blame clients for treating our industry as a financial middlemen that we have morphed into.

• Publicis, Omnicom Set To Talk 'Integration' This Week by Steve McClellan (MAD on 10/16/2013)
  

  Hi there Maurice - would your integration committee also kindly add a Washington fiscal deal to their agenda this weekend. Thanks, Martin

• MEC Debuts Analytics Tool To Optimize Media Sales by Steve McClellan (MediaDailyNews on 05/22/2012)
  

  Hm. Sounds like good old Sales Modeling to me. And frankly, it's better to BE crossmedia than to claim or sell it. Best of luck, Martin Albrecht ========= Co-President, CROSSMEDIA, Inc. www.xmedia.com

• WFA: End Secrecy Surrounding Agency Media Rebates by Steve McClellan (MediaDailyNews on 03/21/2012)
  

  Folks: Neutrality is the core of the consulting side of the media business. Media agencies who are keeping rebates, or make their clients pay for free inventory cease to be media agencies: they are just another media vendor. Why WFA members keep up with the secrecy surrounding their own investments is anybody's guess. Simple rule: if you need advice, go to the Doctor, if you want Aspirin, go to the pharmacy. If you would like to hear how we doubled our agency since introducing a third-party audit of our transparency, I look forward to hearing from you: albrecht@crossmedia.de

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