This is an idea that I've been considering for a long time. I plan to use this space as a soap box to make my readers aware of the fact that they are their own worst enemies, when it comes to advancing automation in the Advertising industry, and perhaps spark some debate as far as how to work in a more collaborative manner with our systems partners, trade associations, and trading partners across all media.
The Advertising industry is among the last to join the 21st century, and embrace electronic commerce. I have been a strong advocate for eBusiness since the AAAA Media Technology Committee coined the term in 2001.
In my new role at the AAAA, I plan to highlight and promote best practices, and work with people to develop best practices where none exist.
One thing I have learned in the 10 years since I crossed the border from the great White north (Canada), is that there is no shortage of great ideas as far as new and innovative ways of using Technology in our industry. In fact if there were a few less people trying to revolutionize our business, and more working to improve it, and partner with some of the existing players, I have no doubt that we could move forward at a much faster pace.
Agencies, and Systems suppliers point fingers at each other: Agencies claim that their vendors are not responding to their needs, and vendors claim that agencies are not asking for things in a clear manner. There is confusion about what should be an industry initiative, and what should be in the realm of proprietary enhancements, if Agencies clearly articulate consistent priorities, and treat their systems supplier as partners, this confusion can be put to rest, and we can begin to address the issues we all face.
Much has been said, and written recently about the need to focus on back office automation and process improvement, I applaud everyone who has come to this realization, we must now move from talking to doing!
There currently are several initiatives going on in the industry today, that go a certain distance to bridge the gap between Agency and Vendor.
In future posts, I plan to open dialogs on each one of these:
DDS's DARE (Direct Agency Rep Exchange)
Katz & Interrep's Radsnet
The National Cable industry's order, and change management capabilities
NCC and the Local Cable industry's order management system
The Newspaper and magazine industry's AdSML initiative.
I'm sure there are more, and I expect my readers to chime in and fill in some blanks.
The fact of the matter is, functionality, adoption, usage, and universality of each of these initiatives have a way to go, and in some cases, universal acceptance is blocked by a variety of reasons. We must enumerate all these variables, and determine how to move the industry forward, without consideration of individual entities stake. This is a big enough sandbox for all to play, and carve out that which makes you unique.
The AAAA and vertical trade associations have worked diligently facilitating the conversations to develop transaction schema, and now it is time to develop time lines, and plans to implement them, on an accelerated basis.
The AAAA has been the facilitator of industry conversations with Arbinet, to provide a centralized cross media registry for all trading partners, which was announced at the 2007 Media Conference. It's time for each of our industry vertical markets, and technology partners, to develop plans to integrate the registry into our technology solutions, this will be the topic of a future post.
At this year's TVB Annual Marketing conferance, Group M CEO Irwin Gotlieb introduced our industry to the concept of "Jump Change" move things forward quickly, and to take a few leaps of faith to get the results that are urgently necessary. I'll take a deeper look at Irwin's interview with Jack Myers in a future post.
The Television Bureau has taken a huge step forward in creating the first open standards, AAAA registry based platform called ePort. ePort is not competitive to any existing industry initiative, and in fact fills a void that has always existed in Spot Television. Spot TV is 50 % Local, 50 % National, of the National portion 50 % is delivered by DARE, which leaves 75 - 80 % of Spot TV business delivered to stations via fax, e-mail, and telephone. ePort fills a void, and will demonstrate a best practice for all vendors to emulate, and frankly, co-operate with. ePort will be the focus of a future post.
AAAA & ANA have partnered to create Ad-ID, the foundation of a digital work flow and a cross media standard ad identifier. To date, over 500 advertisers have adopted Ad-ID, and more are coming on board. There are huge opportunities for process improvement related to Ad-ID, which I will address in a future post.
So to close this first post, let me say that I look forward to lively conversations, towards the common goal of increasing productivity, by moving eBusiness in the Advertising industry forward.
