SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico\u2014Anyone can sympathize with traditional television networks given the transformational challenges they face. But to empathize, one has to have been there, as has Adam Gerber. In this interview, the ABC and agency veteran details the responsibilities for change of each constituency\u2014from media to measurement companies, marketers and agencies\u2014as he assays the rate of change thus far.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re moving at a decent pace but I do wish we were moving faster,\u201d Gerber, who is President of Global Media Investment for GroupM\u2019s Essence<\/a> agency, says during a break at the recent Beet Retreat 2018<\/a>.<\/p>\n He expresses the wish that some of the barriers \u201cthat are really more commercially related, less technical related, would get pushed out of the way and that we\u2019d have companies working more closely together on things that are important to ultimately the folks who matter, who are the viewers and advertisers.\u201d<\/p>\n Until then, here\u2019s how Gerber sizes up the field.<\/p>\n Media companies: They need to figure out \u201chow they\u2019re going to work together in the future as a platform as opposed to independent media sellers. That is a really big step change from where their current organizations are, where their motivations lie, et. cetera. And that\u2019s going to be a tough one to untangle.\u201d<\/p>\n Measurement companies: These are challenged with a different task, \u201cwhich is completely rethinking and reinventing the way that they provide marketplace intelligence and marketplace currency to the actors.\u201d In moving from a panel-based world to one where everything is addressable and highly fragmented, \u201crequiring census-level data is a huge change for the measurement companies.\u201d<\/p>\n Agencies need to reorganize and \u201crethink how they are structured and go to market. It shouldn\u2019t be about price, it should be about business outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n Clients need to rethink how they engage with their agencies. \u201cI think there\u2019s too much pressure on price being the driver and I think they need to rethink the types of skillsets and capabilities that they really prioritize with their agency partners.\u201d<\/p>\n Now for sympathy versus empathy. Asked how he would have responded while on the network TV side to suggestions that competing companies pool their inventory and become more of a easy to use advertising platform, Gerber<\/a> offers the benefit of the doubt. \u201cThere\u2019s a hypothesis that moving from the unit-based model and the directly sold model that we live in today to a algorithmically driven, automated platform-based model will create more value for everyone,\u201d he observes. \u201cI think that\u2019s the way we look at it at Essence and that would be the argument that we would make. The problem is, the data doesn\u2019t exist. No one really knows whether that\u2019s what will happen.\u201d<\/p>\n So it\u2019s reasonable that media sellers who in some quarters are expected to quickly upend their long-held business practices to try to move TV in general ahead are skeptical of the outcome. That’s because there\u2019s no way of knowing whether doing so \u201cwill actually create more demand at a higher price, or at least at a revenue-neutral level. It\u2019s a huge risk for companies that have large existing legacy revenue streams in place. Much easier for companies that are starting from scratch.\u201d<\/p>\n