The "are we talking ourselves into a media recession?" question is one
increasingly heard in the industry.
Apart from the irritation of its
hand-wringing, woe-is-us quality, it is, of course, a ridiculous question.
First, because to all intents and purposes we are in a media recession already;
and second, because the implication is that, if only we stopped talking about
it, the dreaded "R" word would be avoided. As if. Anyone who prevaricates about
this is doing themselves no favours.
Agencies and media owners can help
themselves by taking the difficult decisions now, trimming whatever fat there is
and getting ready to bounce back leaner and fitter.
Let us all pay heed to
the strategy behind our upcoming Olympic endeavour. Team GB comprises some
athletes whose real medal chances lie not in Beijing - from where they are
expected to return stronger and more experienced if not laden with gold - but
four years hence in London.
Team Media GB can get itself in shape by putting
the training schedules in place now (why, incidentally, is training one of the
first lines to be cut when the going gets tough?), setting targets and preparing
for the media bonanza that will surely come in 2012, if not before.
As our
feature (Media Week, August 5, page 25) reveals, ZenithOptimedia predicts that the Beijing Olympics is
generating an additional $1bn of ad expenditure. Nielsen research shows that ad
spend in China is up 20% year on year in the first quarter, a figure expected to
rise in the second and third.
Of course, 60 million portly Brits will not
generate the same uplift as 1.3 billion brand-hungry Chinese and a clutch of
Western multinationals desperate to serve them, but the prospects are
nonetheless exciting.
There's nothing like an Olympic ad blitz to test the
ingenuity of media owners and agencies. The former will seek to find new ways to
engage audiences, thus tapping into advertiser cash. The latter will have to
find solutions for clients, large and small, who will expect their message to be
heard in a cacophony of noise.
Four years sounds like a marathon. But being
fit to compete for gold when the finishing line comes into view in 2012 is a
worthy goal. Training starts now.
