Do you hear something?

Is someone banging on the door?

Yes, I think someone’s banging on the door. Pretty hard actually.

In fact, it’s deafening.

The knocking is empowered digital media buyers. The slowness to answer is the media ecosystem of publishers, media agencies, and broadcasters.

I shared the video below a week ago on LinkedIn and people clearly like it. It’s the parable I just stated, but acted out. Listen to Gabe Leydon of Machine Zone (big digital media buyer) slam the media ecosystem. It’s painful. Cathartic. Iconoclastic. Focus on two segments: 11:00 -> 11:45 and 12:55 -> 13:55.

This is the advertising ecosystem’s reckoning with the age of the customer. The customers want to cut through all of the layers of BS that advertising has traditionally wrapped itself up in.

I had a few takeaways given Leydon’s analysis:

  • Media businesses are trying to be technology platforms, but are mostly houses on fire.
  • Analytics agencies are the new media agencies.
  • Media agencies are just houses on fire.

If you’re a marketer, pull your media-buying capabilities close to your chest. Invest in better analytics. And do everything in your power to get a measurable, direct-to-consumer sales channel on its feet, if only to provide insights to the marketing that feeds your indirect channels.