Exclusive look: Our newly launched Media Buying Briefing and Marketing Briefing

This week, we’re giving Digiday readers access to two weekly features, the newly launched Media Buying Briefing and the Marketing Briefing, normally available exclusively to Digiday+ members.

The Media Buying Briefing, authored by Michael Bürgi, goes deep into the world of media buying and media agencies, including the news, developments and trends impacting everything from the major holding-company shops owned by IPG, Publicis, WPP, Dentsu, Omnicom and Havas, as well as independents as big as Horizon Media, but also smaller agencies all over the world.

Authored by senior marketing editor Kristina Monllos and marketing reporter Kimeko McCoy, the Marketing Briefing dives into the world of brands, marketing and the executives shepherding them for their companies.

Get a taste of the briefings below and subscribe to Digiday+ for access to all future briefings. Use code MEDIABUYING for 20% off annual membership.

Media Buying Briefing: Four trends that will shape the agency business in 2021

Hi, I’m Michael Bürgi and I’ll be writing the Media Buying Briefing for Digiday. I’ve long paid attention to media agencies over the course of my career as a journalist — I worked my way up the masthead at Mediaweek over the course of 17 years, the last seven as editor-in-chief — and media buyers formed the core of my sourcing as a reporter and editor.

Truth is, the media agency world is under fire from all corners of the communications ecosystem. Some of it is the result of letting enemies (i.e. consultancies) get stronger and better equipped, some of it is the result of massive change and upheaval to traditional ways of doing business — which media agencies have been slow to respond to.

I see four major challenges to the media agency community — and the opportunities that lie within them.

Read the rest of this week's Media Buying Briefing here.

Marketing Briefing: The next weeks ‘will be tense’: Marketers brace for more social unrest

Last week, advertisers pressed pause on paid social, TV and streaming platforms following the insurrection at the Capitol Building. That advertisers did so is no surprise — they’ve had enough practice that systems are in place to pull ads quickly when the need to do so arises.

While most advertisers have returned to those channels, there’s a sense that “the next couple of weeks will be tense,” noted one agency executive, adding that agencies “have to be ready to move at any moment” should there be more unrest. Overall, marketers and agency execs are taking a wait and see approach to the current moment, staying alert and in close contact to be ready to react, i.e. pull ads, as needed. “We’re back on, but treading cautiously,” said a media buyer for an independent agency.

“We have to remain vigilant,” said the agency executive, adding that while it has always been an on-call job it has only become more so in times of social unrest. “How do you keep a brand safe in that environment? I always think about the mindset of people receiving the message. Do you want to show up when someone is watching on TV what we saw on Wednesday? Do you want to show up in that mindset? It’s a very emotional thing.”

Read the rest of this week's Marketing Briefing here​.