The Media Leader Podcast
Caroline Johnson, director and co-founder of The Business Model Company, talks to The Media Leader about why media agencies are no longer fit for purpose and need to get rid of charging models based on employees’ time.
Agencies that provide media, advertising and marketing services are having to work harder than ever while hiring increasingly expensive talent to stay relevant. Johnson argued that agencies need to reposition themselves as consultants and start charging based on the outcomes they provide for advertisers, not just units of time spent working on an account.
“2024 is the make-or-break year for our industry,” Johnson warned, due to “lots and lots of external market factors [and] internal conditions that have become so heightened that they are causing burnout in our industry and a devaluation of the wonderful talent and capability that we have”.
This conversation should be considered a companion to our episode in January with Ryan Kangisser at MediaSense, whose advertiser survey last year revealed significant dissatisfaction with media agency models.
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Thanks, as always, to our production partners Trisonic for editing this episode.
Highlights
1:50: What The New Business Model Company does and who it works with
6:20: Why are agency models challenged?
9:28: The way agencies pitch to advertisers is broken
14:25: Advertisers need to pay their agencies more
26:21: How AI can add value for agencies beyond replacing staff with machines
31:04: Agencies that are breaking the mould and future-proofing themselves
34:11: Aren’t all businesses suffering from information overload, especially in hybrid working environments?
43:09: Why Johnson is passionate about this industry
The Media Leader Podcast is a twice weekly show in which our journalists interview some of the most influential people in advertising and media, as well as the next generation of future leaders and rising stars. We also review the biggest stories in media and discuss our featured columnists’ latest opinion pieces.
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