One ExchangeWire source revisits the heady predictions of 2011, compared to market reality in 2014, and ultimately concludes that media spend is still allocated, by and large, the same way as it was in three years ago.

Back in the dizzy heights of 2011 there were some interesting discussions on what a typical media plan might look like in the future – there were even had specific panels geared around this at ATS.

During this time, there were some key questions which experts were making predictions around, so we wanted to see where things were three years down the line.

In 2011 agencies were building trading desks and internal ad networks with the view of centralising the media buying process. The traditional demarcation between agencies, ad networks and publishers is being radically changed. So how will this affect the way media spend is allocated?

But come 2014, and this hasn’t really. Third-party buyers such as networks, independent trading desks, etc, still exist in their droves and are making some healthy margin.

Publishers still employ large sales teams and while a lot of the ‘non-direct’ inventory has been swept into auction based environments, programmatic direct (the bit that really needs automating) represents a very small percentage of the ad sales pie. Media spend is still allocated, by and large, the same way as it was in 2011. This one is a work in progress but programmatic and agency trading desks are expected to take a greater share.

In 2011 many people were asking if there will still be a media plan in the coming years?

And in 2014 it still exists today and is required for the advertiser stakeholders to understand where their investment is being deployed. Will this ever disappear? Probably not as it is used to compare digital investment versus offline investment. But perhaps if a piece of planning tech launches which incorporates all channels then this might change (think Salesforce, Google and Adobe).

Also in 2011, the question of whether all media-buying take place from the agency trading desk – with external supply and third-party plugged in?

Come 2014, and those who buy into the value that an agency trading desk can bring are proactively seeking ways to plug in third-parties, but clients and planners are very wary of putting all their eggs into one basket.

Some trading desks are less receptive to specific inventory deals due to the lack of scale of the buy (i.e. a £10k specialist buy will unlikely be transacted by the trading desk) but more trading desks are investing in the ‘publisher side’ and want to be less reliant on the commoditised RTB space.

In 2011, the question also arose of whether or not market dynamics would mean traditional third-party buyers are likely to disappear from the media buying landscape? Or will there be consolidation among the ad networks?

To date, there has been some consolidation and lots of outfits who were making shed-loads of cash in 2011 are much smaller these days.

But they are still in existence and while some response based planning is incorrect (heavy duplication in user reach and far too high frequencies), they will continue to exist. If an agency can nail the bit between planning and execution then we’ll likely see the ad nets disappear.

Another common question in 2011 was will ad networks have to go direct to survive?

Presently, this is still up for debate. Companies like Quantcast, RocketFuel, and Criteo have hired client-direct teams attempting to bypass the agency, but the agencies still control the bulk of the spend and make the majority of the decisions

In 2011, we also asked the question of whether or no we will see more in-housing of media buying?
Fast-forward to 2014 and Moneysupermarket, King.com, PKR, Kimberley Clark to name but a few have all done this.

But estimates claim less than 5% of UK advertisers have brought the media buying in-house, that is probably up 1%-2% in the past three years – not substantial by any means and this isn’t expected to grow much further in the coming years.

The most significant reason for this is being able to hire the talent away from agencies/trading desks, and third-parties to run this in-house.

As we move ahead, it will be interesting to see how the media plan develops, but as mentioned, while consolidation will be a good thing, it is reliant on the decision makers of advertiser planning adjusting the way in which they operate.