IPA: A celebration of media owners
Nigel Gwilliam, digital consultant at the IPA, says technology is driving breakneck change in the media world, but when it comes to working with agencies, online media owners have discovered there are few things like good old-fashioned customer service. It’s time for us to celebrate this new found maturity with the MOAs…
At the end of 2006 times were good if you worked in online media sales. So much revenue was flowing into the sector, sales targets practically smashed themselves. Like estate agents in a property boom, tough times were quickly forgotten and exuberance was the name of the game.
But for such a young industry, this rags to riches story came at a price – agencies began noticing there was no commensurate improvement in levels of service from this increasingly main stream medium. In fact, concerns were raised that it was a victim of its success. Why go the extra mile for your client if you were getting your full bonus without bothering? Agency executives with experience dealing with print, outdoor and TV operations began noting the ‘service gap’ between on and offline commercial operations.
The IPA Digital Media Group, consisting of senior figures from the digital media agency community, concluded a new benchmark was required. Under their guidance, the IPA commissioned the first survey of online media owner service levels in early 2007. For the first time, a truly cross industry snapshot of service by leading media owners would be taken.
In the years since the survey has become a biannual feature of the online media owner calendar. It’s not always made pleasant reading for those covered but it has proved invaluable at transparently tracking the highs and lows of a medium growing up. Having seen the impact of times being too good, we watched as service levels struggled in the post credit-crunch environment as resource was squeezed. The worst appears to have passed and with media owners paying ever greater attention to service we felt it was time to celebrate the best examples out there.
We discovered very few awards exist purely for the media owner community. And yet where our members had participated in judging media owner categories, they spoke of the effort sales teams went to win awards being extraordinary. With this in mind we decided it was time for an awards scheme dedicated solely to online media owners and thus the MOAs were born. These will combine celebrating survey-based achievement with awards for new submission-based categories championing great service from individuals, teams and entire companies large and small.
To get the ball rolling, earlier this month we launched the new award branding, circulating online winner’s badges to this year’s survey performers. The reaction was fantastic with at least one commercial director taking his entire team for an impromptu celebration at their local pub. It was with some regret we had to advise there would be no actual award gongs until the full launch next year.
From what we hear, a number of commercial leads are already beginning to covet the new ‘best commercial director’ (2011) award. We’ll also being rewarding individual excellence at the other end of the career spectrum with a ‘best newcomer’ award as well as ‘best unsung hero’ for members of the often forgotten back office and sales support teams. The judging panel will be made up of agency representatives of the IPA Digital Media Group so will carry considerable weight within the industry. All of these submissions-based awards will be open to online media owners of any size rather than just those covered in the survey. In fact we receive so many requests from sales operations to feature in the survey we have decided to make that part of the prize for a further award ‘best unfeatured media owner’.
A full list of the awards will be unveiled in March when the 2011 MOAs are launched in earnest. But it is perhaps the Gala Dinner next November that will be the most eagerly awaited. The media business knows how to celebrate and we intend to put on a truly fitting night. We’re even approaching New Zealand’s Moa Brewery about providing some complimentary liquid refreshment. The beer and the awards share a common inspiration: the Giant Moa – exceptionally rare.
For more information on the MOAs, click here.