On this week’s #MediaSnack there is a nice theme of 'disruption' which weaves through the episode. We start with Tom sharing his observations and learnings from attending a marketer event last week in New York. Tom was invited to sit on a panel organised by The Internationalist and the Association of National Advertisers under the theme “Setting the Global Marketing Agenda”. The day started with a fireside chat with Brad Jakeman, President of PepsiCo beverages who pulls no punches when talking about marketers need to disrupt their own businesses and his frustration at agencies for not evolving and innovating as fast as marketers need them to. The panels followed, on the theme “The Reinvention of Client Agency Relationships” and alongside Tom featured the very impressive Andy Markowitz from GE Performance Marketing Labs, Rob Rakowitz from Mars and Dan Vihn from Marriott. Next we discuss the phenomenon of the US presidential race currently well underway. Typically the candidates with the most media budgets will be most successful, almost all previous victorious candidates going on to be president have spent the most money on campaign advertising. However this year, Donald Trump has turned the model on its head and disrupted the normal rules. He’s done this by understanding the power of earned media, to date estimated at nearly $2bn in value, having spent only $10m which is just a fraction of what some of the other (less successful) candidates have spent. #Trump has dominated media coverage, perhaps being intentionally provocative in order to do so, and sucked the air out of his competitors' bid for exposure. Forcing them to spend even more aggressively to counter his dominance of the airwaves. So far the strategy seems to be working well for him. Finally we bring news of a new agency shortly launching in London. #VaynerMedia are opening their London office, their first outside the US, in July. Tom met with the Vayner team in New York last week to discuss their plans and learn more about their innovative agency model. Look out for a special #MediaSnack next week featuring VaynerMedia founder Gary Vaynerchuck, host of the #AskGaryVee YouTube show, which has clearly been closely modelled on ID Comms #MediaSnack ;)
