CMDC Media Digest, 2015-2016

Hiring for the Agency of the Future We talk about the media world today fragmentation fast paced change technology led automation datadriven How are media agencies keeping up with all this Well we have been hiring and training our employees for the jobs of today and tomorrow not for the jobs that have been in the past We have recognized that an important way for agencies to stay relevant with clients today is to remain their key strategist and their unbiased integrator For this agencies have been using a mixture of talent to lead crossfunctional teams to help build brands through storytelling and to solve their clients business challenges As technology and automation continue to evolve into every facet of the media agency there will always be a need for human intervention to recalibrate as market conditions change As such there are three capabilities that agencies are expanding on to ensure that we are able to tell our clients stories while meeting their changing business needs TECH TALENT In this digitally led world agencies have been rapidly addressing our technology base To do this we are committing to the appropriate tech talent and the resources behind them to keep up with the latest developments Agencies need to know and understand how partner offerings work to improve agencies product and therefore advertisers results In the short term one of the most important tools for agencies is their DMP staffed with optimizers and campaign managers who understand a variety of media nuances and attributes in order to deliver a variety of objectives DATA TALENT Both digital and traditional media are being driven by data and analytics We use data to guide us in planning in buying and in measuring e g attribution models As such we will continue to invest in data driven talent such as analysts and researchers They will not only look at big data but look at the micro moments noticing smaller trends before they become larger CONTENT TALENT All agencies are helping brands tell their story through content Some media agencies are even building their own content studios to create relevant and cost effective content for their clients Content creators require creative and technical skills that traditionally media agencies have left to the creative agencies Media agencies are able to offer a new value add service and generally this service is at a lower cost than ad agencies This is not meant to take work away from the ad agencies They will continue to create beautiful ads Media agencies studios can produce short form content or integrations that supplement the brand creative produced by the ad agencies It should all be strategically linked And whats an article on the agency of the future without mentioning millennials Everyone in the industry is still trying to figure out how to hire develop and retain millennials We seem to have forgotten that the oldest millennials are 36 years old Havent they aged out of the youth life stage by then Shouldnt we be moving on to understanding the centennials or edgers the generational cohort who are 18 and under They will soon be graduating university and looking for jobs We need to understand now how they are different from millennials just as millennials were different from Gen Xers and boomers Lastly agencies are now looking at a different competition set for talent We have always competed with the traditional media companies but are now competing with the big tech companies for talent They look to source talent not only from each other but from media agencies The challenge for media agencies is that tech companies are seen by employees as a more sexy place to work and to top it off they generally pay better than media agencies We look at the broader landscape when hiring today and not just the agency down the street We are looking at sourcing data talent from research firms or tech talent from digital companies Taking it one step further we Leeanne Comish President M2 Universal OPINION 29 The Business of Media CANADIAN MEDIA DIRECTORS COUNCIL