Forget Year of Mobile, It’s Actually the Year of Video

May 20, 2013

 

(an edited version appeared on Ad Age 5/17/13…)

I admit I’m a geek and so was excited to sneak a peek at FOX’s Almost Heaven that played a starring role in Monday’s FOX Upfront presentation, and I was just a little curious with the latest exploits of Nicole Richie in AOL’s unscripted #CandidlyNicole launching at the Digital NewFronts earlier this month.  What is clear is that coming up this season, viewers can look forward to an abundance of programming, while advertisers will see immense competition for a share of ad budgets.

video

 

As much as we all talked about 2013, finally being the Year of Mobile, I’m convinced that it actually is going to be the Year of Video.  Here’s why:

More viewing on video, with more time spent on more devices.

Too much is made of falling Network prime time ratings.  According to our estimates at GroupM, overall video consumption is up year on year by about 3.7%, assisted by viewing of streaming video on PC’s, connected TV’s and mobile devices.  According to the latest comScore, 183 million Americans on average view 215 videos each month online.  Mobile’s big boost is also being driven by video, with Cisco forecasting that by 2016, two thirds of mobile traffic will be viewing video.

Dynamic content is growing audiences.

This past year, the rules are being re-written on the back of strong original programming investment.  Cable network AMC’s Walking Dead was the second highest rating show on prime time television, beating out top Network shows such as FOX’s American Idol and ABC’s Modern Family in straight 18-49 ratings.  Netflix’s House of Cards purportedly pulled in 2.7 million viewers in its first 12 days which is about the same as what premium cable network Showtime’s pilot of Homeland achieved in live and on-demand viewing when it launched in 2011.

Live Television remains a powerful medium.

However, before you write off Network TV, live viewing remains a powerhouse that advertisers still want.  Despite 44% home penetration of DVRs, 50% of households now accessing video on demand and 5 million Americans having cut their cable cord; 85% of video viewing is still live television.  Live sports, live news and must see television, such as the season finale coming up this week on ABC’s Scandal or NBC’s The Voice are not just good for ratings, but deliver higher attention to the commercials, and boosted by more social media engagement.

Video storytelling continues to be a persuasive brand medium.

When it comes to branding, video continues to be a powerful choice for advertisers.  Brand tracker studies and media mix models I’ve seen over the years consistently prove Television to be the most readable in driving results both in terms of brand recall and sales.   We know TV ads are not just interruptive, but they are also engaging.  On top of the 100 million plus viewers that a TV spot in the Super Bowl reaches, the ads in the 2012 Super Bowl were viewed an additional 400 million times online.  Additionally, there are healthy levels of attention, with online video ads typically achieving a viewed completion rates of 87%.

Video is CPM gold.

For publishers, CPMs for video are typically 3-4 times display CPMs which is why the AOL, Yahoo!, YouTube, but also the likes of Vevo and Blip investing in original video content.  So too are the print brands.  CondeNast and Wired venturing into their own video channels.  The advertising potential appears promising.  Ads are now appearing in 25% of online videos, roughly double the percentage versus just two years ago.  Yet, this increased ad load doesn’t appear to have deterred online video viewership which continues to rise.  On the television side, National Broadcast is still able to sustain premium CPMs.  While the top Cable Networks continue to eye those premiums as the potential for upside.

However, the industry needs to up its game to utilize video’s full potential. 

The media are changing the game on video.  But are we evolving to meet those opportunities?

  • Video content is being consumed in multiple different contexts and devices.  Whether it’s live event television, catch up viewing on-demand, niche viewing on mobile, binge viewing via Hulu or user generated video.  Are we thinking strategically as to the types of ad content forms we are placing in those different environments that best optimize the brand experience?
  • According to Bright Roll, Inc. only 10-15% of online video ads are interactive.  The rest run variations of ordinary TV spots.  Are we underutilizing the opportunity to be more immersive?
  • Some level of Addressable Television either by individual household or zip code level in 60 million homes is increasing how we can make television advertising to be more relevant to audience
  • Drilling and responding to user data provides further abilities to not just be more targeted but more efficient in our communications.; and
  • With so many alternatives, delivering a more effective video strategy needs multiple content solutions.  To achieve this effectively, we need to develop and deploy more cost efficient ways to produce advertising video content.

The future for video is bright.  As to are those brands and agencies that choose to exploit the full capabilities of video.

Filed under The media and Ad world

Going Beyond the 30 Second Ad is Not Only Desirable, it’s Now Essential

April 17, 2013

How a Content First approach to brand communications is creating more engagement

By Antony Young, CEO Mindshare North America

The 30 second ad has served us well as the staple for awareness building and driving brand familiarity.  However, the speed at which media is being viewed across multiple devices; the increasing scale and influence of social platforms; and how consumers now more than ever are dictating where, when and what media they choose to consumer is causing us to re-think how brands need to engage them.

That’s why I think that one of the most important ideas that agencies will have to adopt is a Content First approach to media.  If our role is to figure out how best to influence consumers, then we have to take a more strategic perspective on where to deliver ads as well as what type of content and content formats are best placed to meet brand communication goals.

Using Longer Form Content To Drive Reappraisal

royal carribbeanWhen Royal Caribbean looked to get first time cruisers to book, this presented them some real challenges.  A 30-second spot alone would not be enough to overcome all the misconceptions about cruises with which the brand needed to content.  Long form story telling was necessary to draw the consumer into the true onboard experience and shift consideration and reshape perceptions.  So Royal Caribbean agreed to develop two short films shot on their flagship “Allure of the Seas: ship featuring Jenny McCarthy and James Brolin.  The storyline incorporated their amenities onboard and gave viewers a more entertaining and organic view of the onboard experience.

 Shorter Form Commercials Are Increasingly becoming As Important

With 1 in 3 digital minutes now spent on a mobile device, when advertising a brand there’s a fine line between annoyance and acceptance that needs to be managed.    During College Basketball’s March Madness, the NCAA pushed out via Twitter live video game highlights of plays as they took place.  Followers could click on to the tweeted link that ran 5 second AT&T spots before the content.  A thirty or fifteen second spot would have certainly been a turn-off, but a short 5 second spot close up, seemed an acceptable trade for real time content in providing a positive consumer experience for basketball fans.   A Content First strategy ensures the consumer experience decides the messaging formats.

Content is About Really Putting the Consumer First

In truth, while we in the ad industry talk about putting consumers first, the reality is that creating ads is really about putting the brand at the center.  There’s nothing wrong with that.  Content, however, plays a different role, in that rather than being focused on brand wants, it is targeted to consumer needs…for information, entertainment, expertise, etc.

HSBC’s Commercial  Banking group wanted to attract small to mid-size companies seeking to expand their business internationally.  Business without Borders – an online platform was created for businesses looking to expand outside of the U.S.

With HSBC we worked with the The Wall Street Journal, Economist Intelligence Unit and Bloomberg to curate business tools, global trends articles, and market analysis and complemented it with relevant financial information and resources.  LinkedIn provided an additional platform to connect this content to the right people, and activate a community of business professionals.

Business without Borders has become a meeting place where members develop relationships and share their experiences as part of the global economy.

In this case, thinking Content First helped to create utility, offer expert advice and help business professionals, exactly the brand proposition that HSBC are looking to establish.  That would have been difficult to achieve with traditional advertising.

Technology is fueling numerous new content opportunities

Some evolving technologies are helping us to create more powerful and relevant advertising opportunities.  When SAP tweeted links to New York Times content they felt was relevant to their CXO followers , SAP through a technology called Ricochet was able to own all the display ad positions around these articles on the NY Times web page.  This not only provided branding of valuable content to their customer, but click through rates that tracked 14 times higher than their response norms.

 makersBranded Content Needs to be Both Social and Shareable

One of the important pay outs in a Content First strategy is driving earned media.  It’s a universal truth that consumers are going to be more likely to share content than ads.  I really loved how Unilever teamed up with AOL and MAKERS Founder and Executive Producer Dyllan McGee to develop its Makers.com program for facial skincare brand Simple.  Simple’s goal was to celebrate women whose authenticity, ideals and pioneering spirit inspire others every day.  AOL helped develop a video platform to produce and share some 160 amazing stories of empowering and inspirational women that helped to make America … from Hillary Clinton to Hope Solo and Ellen DeGeneres.  The content program, TV special on PBS and surrounding events for the program drove advocacy amongst opinion formers, delivered this at scale generating over 200 million earned impressions via editorial, social mentions and raging endorsements from top beauty magazine editors to influential bloggers.

Data is Creating Adaptive Content Marketing Opportunities

We are seeing examples of how marketers are adapting their messaging by combining data and creativity.  Take what The Home Depot is doing with The Weather Channel.  Tapping the Home Depot banner on the Weather Channel’s mobile app sends you to their mobile ecommerce site, which dynamically showcases products extracting weather conditions and location data of the user.  Very cool.

Today’s crowded market creates more obstacles than ever before for advertisers, making it an increasingly difficult task to stand out and be heard.  The answer doesn’t start in the boardroom with a handful of executives creating an ad that is then pushed out.  It starts in the world, with a single consumer looking for information and entertainment, and a brand that is listening.

[An edited version appeared in Adage.com http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/30-ad-a/240857/]

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Big Data Promotes a Culture of Data-Informed Decision Making and Adaptive Marketing – Antony Young-Mindshare

March 14, 2013 1 Comment

data

By Antony Young

Big Data is quickly being catapulted to the top of Marketing’s agenda, but it remains a challenge for many companies in preparing for this shift. According to a survey conducted by IBM, less than half of CMO’s feel prepared to cope with this increasing amount of marketing data over the next 5 years, with the data explosion cited as their #1 headache. The problem isn’t obtaining data, it’s figuring out how to turn it into marketing magic. I’m seeing a growing list of exceptional cases of marketer’s shifting their organizations to adopt a higher level of data-informed decision making, often with astonishing results.

It’s not so much big data, but smart data used at scale

Last week, I had dinner with Joe Rospars, founding partner at Blue State Digital, who served as Obama’s Chief Digital Strategist for his 2008 and 2012 campaigns, and asked him about big data. He responded, their approach “wasn’t so much big data, but smart data used at scale.” To win this election, they needed to get very granular in their targeting. By extracting voter files and collecting information via the tens of thousands of polling calls made to homes every night, they were able to identify by household individual voter likelihood, and then determine the communications they needed to deliver.

The Obama campaign expertly targeted via online advertising, email, door to door and phone canvassing very personalized messaging. They cleverly extended this strategy via social media. Nearly a million supporters that ‘liked’ the Obama 2012 page also allowed access to their profile data via Facebook Connect. This enabled Obama’s people to identify their Facebook friends in battleground States, cross tabulate with their own databases, which they then asked supporters to email or even personally call their friends that fit likely Obama voter profiles, to remind them to register or vote early.

Data is the engine for Adaptive Marketing

Data is allowing brands to move quicker and more decisively to gain a market advantage by dynamically informing their messaging and media.

Samsung a big investor in data, worked with insights firm Networked Insights, to use real-time social listening to help them keep a finger on the pulse of consumer sentiment and adjust their communications to capitalize on the web discussion about brands.

Within a couple of hours of Apple’s Tim Cook revealing their iPhone 5, Samsung reading the reaction in social channels, drafted new print, digital, and TV ads. The following week as the iPhone hit the stores, they aired TV ads mocking Apple customers queuing up for the new phone and some of its less flattering features. The commercial was a hit, and received more than 70 million views online.

They also used social listening as a real time guide to evaluate how effective their ads were with consumers by measuring what people are saying about them and what effect they’ve having on competitors’ brands. Stressing the importance of data in informing their marketing, Brian Wallace, the former VP of Marketing at Samsung, (who recently moved to Motorola to a global marketing role) said, “The data guys lead these conversations. Not the creative guys. Not the sale guys. And it’s not just analytics — it’s analysis.” He added, “[data] does not crush the art of advertising. It simply informs it — and ultimately improves it.” Samsung’s shift to a strategy of employing social data at the center was one of the key factors that assisted them to move from the number 4 mobile device manufacturer to pass the mighty Apple.

Creating a more personalized customer experience

I’m seeing a focus on data enabling marketers to create smarter, more engaged customer experiences.

I recently chaired a panel which included Sandra Zoratti, co-author of the book Precision Marketing. She cited Caesar’s Entertainment as a marketer that centralized data to better formulate its approach to marketing. They identified 0.15% of their customers that contributed to 12% of their casino revenues. This led to them employing Good Luck Ambassadors to monitor these customers. If they weren’t having a good night on the tables, they offered complimentary tickets to a show or dinner based on their known preferences to ensure they left their casinos with a positive experience.

Building a fluid organization that can capitalize on the data

Shifting to a fast moving data marketing organization isn’t just about software and strategy. It requires a shift in how the agency and clients teams work.

The Obama campaign quadrupled their data team from the previous election campaign, adding data technologists, behavioral scientists and mathematicians to crunch the data and help interpret them into actionable marketing insights.

According to Rospars, to improve speed of activation, they established a persona playbook on how the brand should speak, to allow them to delegate decision making down.

Personally, I love this shift to data-informed decision making. It is creating more adaptive, more relevant and more commercial marketing programs. We are barely scratching the surface, but it’s clear that going forward, data will be an enabler of more potent marketing.

Filed under The media and Ad world Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Leveraging Data to Embrace the Customer Experience

January 30, 2013

OMMA’s Data Driven Marketing panel I chaired last week: “Leveraging Data to Embrace The Customer Experience http://ow.ly/hem0e 

OMMA DDM

The One True View: Leveraging Data to Embrace The Customer Experience
It is not about the channel experience anymore. Big data makes possible a holistic view of a consumer “journey,” that is bigger and more personal than simply being online, in-store, on mobile, or watching TV. That 360-degree or “one true view” of that customer can inform how messaging is crafted and timed according to the user’s path, not the platform. It demands a new understanding of a consumer “lifecycle” and data that drives marketers towards the right touch points. Our panel of marketing practitioners shares examples of how data is best being used to understand and enhance the customer experience and the challenges of creating that “one true view.”
MODERATOR
Antony Young, CEO, Mindshare, N.A. @AntonyYoung
PANELISTS
Shaina Boone, VP, Marketing Science, Critical Mass
Greg Corso, VP, Media Solutions, dunnhumby @gjcorso
Pete Stein, President, Eastern Region, Razorfish @pstein211
Randy Watson, VP of Consulting, Digital Impact & Innovation, Acxiom
Sandra Zoratti, VP of Marketing, Executive Briefings and Education, Ricoh @sandraz
See the video of the panel by clicking this link.

Filed under The media and Ad world Tagged with , , ,

How Data and Micro-Targeting Won the 2012 Election for Obama

November 26, 2012

If Obama’s Presidential campaign in 2008 was defined by social media, then surely his successful 2012 re-election bid should be attributed to their use of data and micro-targeting.

Election night seemed to confound many of the pundits. Governor Romney appeared to put together a strong campaign with the polls leading into the final week suggesting a tight race. Romney won 60% of White voters. He in fact even won the independents vote. Yet he lost the key battleground States of Ohio, Florida, Virginia, New Hampshire, Iowa, Colorado and Nevada … handing the sitting President a second term.

How did Obama win?

First, he delivered a well-orchestrated campaign of largely negative advertising targeting Romney, which served the purpose of suppressing voter turnout by traditionally Republican supporters.

Second, he mobilized key voter blocks to register early and vote. 18-24 year olds; African Americans; Latinos and single women in the key swing States. Voter turnout for these four key demographics was about 70% thereby giving him the numbers he needed to push him over the edge.

At the heart of these two strategies, was micro-targeting.

Micro-targeting is the ability to dissect in this case, the voter population in to narrow segments and customize messaging to them, both in on-the-ground activities and in the media.

Micro-targeting isn’t a new idea in politics or marketing for that matter. Karl Rove expertly exploited this in the successful Bush campaign in 2000 and 2004. But it was the sophistication and the scale of how they executed this strategy that in the end, proved the knock-out punch for the Democrats.

The Obama camp in preparing for this election, established a huge Analytics group that comprised of behavioral scientists, data technologists and mathematicians. They worked tirelessly to gather and interpret data to inform every part of the campaign. They built up a voter file that included voter history, demographic profiles, but also collected numerous other data points around interests … for example, did they give to charitable organizations or which magazines did they read to help them better understand who they were and better identify the group of‘persuadables‘ to target.

That data was able to be drilled down to zip codes, individual households and in many cases individuals within those households.

However it is how they deployed this data in activating their campaign that translated the insight they garnered into killer tactics for the Obama campaign.

Volunteers canvassing door to door or calling constituents were able to access these profiles via an app accessed on an iPad, iPhone or Android mobile device to provide an instant transcript to help them steer their conversations. They were also able to input new data from their conversation back into the database real time.

The profiles informed their direct and email fundraising efforts. They used issues such Obama’s support for gay marriage or Romney’s missteps in his portrayal of women to directly target more liberal and professional women on their database, with messages that “Obama is for women,” using that opportunity to solicit contributions to his campaign.

Micro-targeting helped them to steer their broadcast buying approach. While both campaigns followed conventional wisdom to buy spots in Local Broadcast news programming, Obama’s team differentiated their schedule by adding networks like TV Land whose viewers they determined “were less political” and therefore more likely to be a persuadable.

Even the selection of celebrity fundraisers were informed by the data. The team identified women 40-49 as the highest contributors to their campaign. Obama’s analytics team in crunching the numbers uncovered that Sara Jessica Parker of Sex in the City fame popped as the most appealing celebrity to this demographic and called her up to ask if she would host a fundraiser dinner for Obama in New York. Web ads and emails from Michelle Obama were sent targeting this group asking them to “chip in whatever they can” with a chance to win an invitation, hotel and flights to New York to attend the event.

As mentioned earlier, encouraging early voting and a higher turnout of key target groups was critical in winning the swing states. They used classic micro-targeting online advertising to reach those groups. Obama’s team’s use of Facebook this time was also very clever, tapping into Facebook’s individual profile data. A million users downloaded the Obama 2012 app on Facebook. The app was able to identify their Facebook friends that fit favorable profiles located in key swing states, encouraging them to contact these friends to remind them to vote. Sources say one in five of those contacted this way were influenced positively by this contact.

Marketers need to take heed of how the Obama campaign transformed their marketing approach centered around data. They demonstrated incredible discipline to capture data across multiple sources and then to inform every element of the marketing – direct to consumer, on the ground efforts, unpaid and paid media. Their ability to dissect potential prospects into narrow segments or even at an individual level and develop specific relevant messaging created highly persuasive communications. And finally their approach to tap their committed fans was hugely powerful. The Obama campaign provides a compelling case for companies to build their marketing expertise around big data and micro-targeting. How ready is your organization to do the same?

 

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What Marketers Can Learn From the 2012 Presidential Campaigns

November 9, 2012

Target, Adapt and Respond — and Don’t Forget Your Ground Game

Mr. Obama’s skillful deployment of social media in 2008 caused marketers to sit up and take notice. So what can brands learn from this year’s massive, sophisticated presidential campaigns?
Barack Obama after his acceptance speech in Chicago
Daniel Acker/Bloomberg News

 

Focus on your swing voters
Both the Romney and Obama campaigns spent the bulk of their media dollars in the battleground states including Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Florida, Wisconsin, Iowa and Nevada (sometimes to the despair of the states’ overwhelmed residents). And they trained much of their fire on the undecideds. That applied even to the individual TV shows they bought. Both campaigns largely avoided placements during cable news shows, for example, whose audiences were more likely to have already decided who they were voting for. Local news broadcasts, on the other hand, indexed highest for independents who were more likely to turn out on Election Day, according to Scarborough.Who are your swing voters? The real value of mass media, and where the economics really make sense, is in drawing new consumers into your brand.

Remember your ground game
The Obama campaign said it made 125 million voter contacts, more than twice the total reported by Republicans, with more field offices in key areas than the Romney campaign and more personal outreach. Marketers would do well to remember that activation, promotion and personal touches go a long way in locking in the benefits of media spending.

Video still works
While 2008 was considered by many “the Facebook Election,” TV — or, more precisely, video — reasserted its strategic importance in 2012. Mr. Obama had a challenging platform to sell given the performance of the economy, but he did in most cases outspend Romney in TV, in many cases 2 to 1. We also saw a heavy shift of dollars into online video. Hulu revealed that election spending on the online video site was up 700% from the last election.

Hyper-local is the new black
Part of the appeal of online video is the ability to hyper-target, that is, the ability to pinpoint media and commercial messaging within a narrow catchment area. In Blacksburg, Va., for example, there are 30,000 students residing at Virginia Tech. The Obama campaign’s Hulu buys targeted the schools’ zip code with “Gotta Vote” spots to encourage students to register and turn out.

Broadcast advertising, too, was tailored to local issues. In Ohio, Mr. Obama’s campaign targeted blue-collar women by promoting its track record on jobs, whereas in Florida, the Romney campaign sought Cuban-American voters with hard-hitting TV commercials claiming Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez supported Mr. Obama’s policies. We saw local radio play a role, too, in this localization.

Are we as marketers really taking opportunity of localizing our media and messaging? Despite a lot of talk about targeting, many marketers still emphasize efficiency in spending over relevance to different customer segments and markets.

Adaptive marketing is rising
I’ve written previously about adaptive marketing, but both candidates just demonstrated its value again as they reacted to voter polls and feedback in nearly real time. And although all marketers listen to consumer responses, it was the speed and consistency with which both the Romney and Obama campaigns were able to respond that impressed me.

On multiple occasions we saw Mr. Romney test a message or storyline in a campaign rally speech. If it got a reaction from the audience, video spots would quickly follow online. If there was strong response online or pickup by cable news networks, the ads would appear on broadcast TV … all within a matter of days, often adjusting further as the campaign progressed.

Adaptive marketing doesn’t always require massive spending and machinery, either. Both candidates also expertly tapped into their advocates to push out tweets during the debates to reinforce key punctuation points to the base or counter comments by their opponent.

Long-form content can persuade 
A good showing in the first debate jolted Mr. Romney out of the doldrums and into contention. While he didn’t win in the end, he closed the gap sharply. Brands, for their part, don’t have to win an election; all they need to do is improve market share. What can be learnt from this? First, all brands have the opportunity to re-invent — or at least drive re-consideration — and it can happen quickly if done well. Second, long-form branded video content is a medium that is underused. Sure, the mass reach of a presidential debate and the subsequent news coverage isn’t available to brands. But deeper content outside of ad units can change opinions.

Negative ads are a negative
Negative advertising was a feature of both candidates’ campaigns, subjecting each candidate’s brand to a beating. According to the Wesleyan Media Project, negative ads between June and October accounted for 62.9% of spots, compared to 39.7% in 2008. I suspect that turned off voters and contributed to the apparent decline in voter turnout from 2008. I hope we don’t see this as a trend for brands in 2013.

Presidential elections are not just a boost to the coffers of the media companies, but serve as a benchmark for brands. For me, the next election can’t come soon enough.

Filed under Brand Media Strategies Analyzed, The media and Ad world Tagged with , , , , ,

To Win the Pitch or Get Your First Big Job, Three Steps Are the Same

October 30, 2012

Mindshare North America CEO on Careers, Media and the Lessons of his Mistakes

Young media planners gunning for their first big job should follow the same advice that applies before a big new-business pitch, said Antony Young, CEO at Mindshare North America, in our latest Basics Q&A with a media agency leader.

He also identified the career mistake he sees too many people making — and four lessons of his own mistakes.

Advertising Age: How did you get your first job?

Antony Young: I started my career in New Zealand, and advertising found me, so I guess advertising does work. It was a well-written classified ad that got me intrigued about working in advertising. The ad sold the job well and it was obviously written by one of the copywriters and it explained what a media planner and buyer does and it did it in a way that pulled me in.

Ad Age: Had you planned to work in advertising?

Mr. Young: Before that, I hadn’t thought seriously about advertising, but I did remember walking past a building and seeing a whole bunch of luxury European cars and BMWs parked outside and I thought, “I don’t know what they do in that company but I wouldn’t mind getting a job there,” and it later turned out it was an ad agency.

Maybe if you live in New York or New Jersey advertising is more on your radar, but in New Zealand it wasn’t the first thing that came up. I sort of fell into the ad business, and I assumed everyone was similar, but now in college there are students who want to end up in advertising. I lecture a bit at Syracuse University at the Newhouse School of Public Communications and when I did my last lecture I said, “You probably don’t know what a media agency is,” but they all did.

Ad Age: How have people responded over the years when you say what you do for a living?

Mr. Young: After I’d been working in the business for a year, I was at a party and someone asked what do you do for a living. I said I worked in advertising, and he said, “You’re one of those unscrupulous people who sells products to people that they don’t need.” I said, “Yes, what do you do?” He said, “I’m a lawyer.”

Ad Age: Is the perception of advertising different now?

Mr. Young: A lot of people come in because they are attracted to the media business, because media is this cross section between pop culture and technology and business, and it’s constantly being talked about even at a young age. Media has become more accessible and it touches your regular life a lot more.

Ad Age: What advice would you give to media planners trying to get their first big job?

Mr. Young: I would give them the same advice I would give myself in preparing for a big pitch. I tell myself three things when we are pitching for an account. First, make sure you are super-prepared. Second, figure out what makes you different and interesting and spend time discussing what makes you stand out. Lastly, say something memorable in your interview.

For my first job, the media director at the time asked me what did I think made me right to be in media department, and I said, “I’m Chinese, I’ve got to be good with numbers.” He said, “That’s a bit of a silly response.” But at least they saw that it was a real response.

Ad Age: What mistakes have you made and what have you learned from them?

Mr. Young: When people talk about experience, it usually means you have made a lot of mistakes. I’ve made plenty in the past months, let alone my career. Here are four things I’ve learned that have come from mistakes. The first is: Don’t raise issues, present solutions. Everyone appreciates a problem solver. The second thing is: Don’t just present numbers, but offer an insight. The third is: Never reply to an annoying email immediately. Always save it in the drafts for a day. And never miss a deadline. No matter what, you will have underdelivered.

Ad Age: What mistakes do you see young media planners and buyers making?

Mr. Young: This is not just young people, but we see all people struggle to delegate. You almost think it’s a good thing to make yourself indispensable or irreplaceable. But don’t. I’ve been lucky about being promoted, in part because people realize there is someone who can take over. Develop your team. If you haven’t groomed someone to take over, that can limit you.

Filed under The media and Ad world

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