In this week's Media Buying Briefing, available exclusively to Digiday+ members, senior media buying and planning editor Michael Bürgi looks at a new generation of talent to handle the '90-second manifesto'.
In this week’s Marketing Briefing, another member exclusive, senior marketing editor Kristina Monllos looks at why brands are continuing to push the line on social posts.
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By Michael Bürgi
A recovering holding company veteran (mostly WPP shops), Media by Mother’s founder and CEO Dave Gaines has enjoyed the challenges of building a media agency from scratch over the last year, hard though it is amidst an industry-changing pandemic. Gaines has focused some of his efforts on the new forms of creativity — and new types of hires to express that creativity — that come with an transforming media environment. Meanwhile, the independent media agency, an offshoot of creative agency Mother, has picked up new clients, who intentionally are not behemoths with extraordinary demands, he said.
Digiday caught up with Gaines to talk through the challenges and opportunities afforded by today’s media climate. The following conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Media by Mother has picked up a few new clients lately. Who?
We picked up Premier Bankcard, out of South Dakota. They do subprime credit cards. When I first looked into it, I must admit I had a preconceived idea about what the audience was like. But there’s a ton of really interesting and sad stories about people getting divorced or getting a massive medical bill, and their credit rating gets hit. They’re very clear that all of their customers are temporary customers — their job is to get them back right into the land of credit. They’re not really familiar with agencies, so they don’t come with preconceived ideas of what we should or shouldn’t be doing.
We’re lucky to work with GoFundMe now and [clothing retailer] Everlane. When I say we’re lucky, we never get a chance at anything over $50 million. And I’m kind of glad at that.
How is your work different for this size of client?
Our goal is never to make money out of trading activities. So on that basis, if we’re running media where we can set the buying up for you — anything that you could buy programmatically through search through social —then we set up that buying under the client’s name. Our buying teams run money through that ad tech, but the accounts are the [client’s]. The negative of that for us — which I don’t really see as a negative necessarily — is that we’re not generating credit with the Googles and Facebooks of the world because the money doesn’t come through our pipes, it goes through the client’s pipes. But it’s changed the way we think about being a media agency. We’re still doing a media agency’s job that’s more akin to being a consultant, but you can actually learn to play — you don’t just turn up with a PowerPoint deck and say, ‘Get on with it.’
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By Kristina Monllos
Nearly a decade ago, Oreo made headlines for its now infamous “Dunk in the Dark” tweet. The tweet, which was sent out during the 2013 Super Bowl, became the perfect example of responsive marketing on social media — something marketers were still figuring out back then — that the industry would point to for years.
It’s harder for brands to stand out on social media now. In the years since “Dunk in the Dark,” it’s become much more common for brands to comment on whatever’s happening at the moment. Brands sound alike on social media now, too. Most social media managers tend to use a colloquial voice to make brand accounts sound, well, less like brands and more like people.
Brand accounts have to go beyond just sounding like people and find ways to stand out — i.e. why Duolingo leans into “unhinged” content on TikTok — so that people will pay attention. It’s easy to see then, why marketers and brand managers are pushing the envelope on social posts as people likely wouldn’t pay attention otherwise.
But recent posts, like Pabst Blue Ribbon’s sexually explicit tweet that got its social media manager fired as well as brands like Ruggables, Hellman’s mayonnaise and Peacock, among others, jumping into TikTok’s West Elm Caleb trend on TikTok (a man who allegedly works for West Elm who was dating, ghosting and sending explicit photos to several women in New York City went viral for those behaviors with women making posts to warn each other about him) have some in the industry questioning were the line is when it comes to standing out or going too far on social media.
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Further reading
‘It’s like the boat is sinking’: Confessions of an agency business development director on the Great Resignation
The uncertainty of the past two years has led agencies to pitch more new business accounts than they usually would, according to a business development director at a full-service agency. Those agencies are doing so out of fear, with leadership worried about clients spending (or lack thereof) and the impact on their business.The Rundown: Google, Meta and Amazon are on track to absorb more than 50% of all ad money in 2022
Google, Meta (formerly Facebook) and Amazon have never been so powerful. Together they accounted for more than $7 in $10 (74%) of global digital ad spending last year, which is 47% of all money spent on advertising over that period.‘TikTok is where we see UGC work really hard for us’: Why Bush’s next ad will be creator-made
Bush’s canned goods is leaning into user-generated content (or UGC) — the company’s next commercial will be made by a creator.
