Dubai

In the end, it will all come down to the issue of trust. Even for the seemingly untouchable digital and social media behemoths Google and Facebook.

“Trust is something you can lose in a short period of time — customers who thought they had many advantage using the platforms need to be worried,” said Vittorio Bonori, Global Brand President at the media buying powerhouse Zenith, part of Publicis Groupe, the world’s third largest communications entity.

“If you going to see a lot of fake news or a lack of transparency, the question is “Should I trust the platforms any more?”. And even if you are a digital giant, you could still risk losing people.”

In the last few days, the many ways user data can be manipulated in the digital space to serve vested or partisan interests have been hogging global headlines … even in the online space. And by the looks of it, this is one issue that is unlikely to go away overnight. (At least not until the final word is said on the Russian influence in the last US Presidential elections …)

But isn’t the future all about digital platforms making sense of all that consumer data available in the public — and private — realm? And if some of that data get misused, should advertisers and marketers be too bothered as long as they deliver results for their clients?

“I don’t think algorithms can be used to moderate social life or social media conversations,” said Bonori. “More so, when digital platforms are facing problems of trust. The GDPR (Global Data Protection Regulation) is landing in Europe (in the EU member-states) in May.” That will add another layer of security in the way businesses can use data from an individual’s online transactions.)

The London-based Bonori says that none of these issues are getting in the way of a working relationship with the likes of Facebook or Google. “I don’t see why I have to see the big platforms as enemies at this moment in time. We are collaborating with them to help clients get personalised solutions.

“At the end of the day, in most of the cases, we are all commercial organisations. My only interest is helping my clients get their own way. And they do so retaining their formula for success even when partnering the big platforms. As for us, we are completely neutral.”

But isn’t there a risk that the digital platforms could start dealing with clients directly? And what has been happening to traditional media could be replicated at media buying houses?

“Look, every industry is risking disruption — the auto industry has moved from selling cars to mobility solutions. The pharma industry has shifted from selling pills to individual healthcare programmes supported by technology.

“Every single sector is under pressure — as we are. On the one side, you could see this as a constant threat, but on the other this is such a big opportunity to reinvent what we do.

“While we do what we can to defend and protect our legacy media planning business, upstream is where new opportunities lie and where we can compete to get bigger budgets. And we do this by helping clients on the consultancy side, in their eCommerce operations, B2B consultancy, on data and even portfolio allocation, etc.

“I will say the changes in the media buying side of the industry is more to do with reinvention than outright disruption. We were the first agency in the world to implement a machine learning algorithm in a digital campaign to allocate budgets in real time. What this does is become more efficient in the implementation because you are using more technology.

“The clients may be paying lower fees (for media planning and buying), but they do spend more on the tech side. That’s where we are now partnering clients — to help them transform — and we have the solutions for that.”

BOX

Big cities light up with the ad dollar

If you want to see where ad dollars are being spent, look to the “big”. Or bigger.

“There is increasing polarisation of ad spend into the big geographies, the big cities and big platforms,” said Vittorio Bonori at Zenith. “The US and China alone are gonna make up 47 per cent of the ad spend and the Top 5 ad markets will make up nearly 60 per cent. This level of consolidation has never been seen.

“We are projecting compounded annual growth of 4-5 per cent in the next three years.”