Media360: MediaVest's Steve Parker on the importance of strategic insights and data

By Arif Durrani, mediaweek.co.uk, Tuesday, 29 May 2012 08:30AM

The roles of traditional planning and buying agencies in the 21st century are being increasingly redefined around strategic insights and data management, two topics underlined by Steve Parker, managing director of MediaVest at Media360 this month.

Steve Parker: managing director of MediaVest

Parker, a long-time attendee of Media360 noted one of the key issues on the first day involved the surge in the amount of data now available, as highlighted in a session by MEC's David Fletcher.

He said: "The thing the conference feels they are most unprepared for is data explosion, which is slightly worrying because data explosion has happened and is happening every day."

Opening this year’s Media360 was Frank van der Post, managing director of brand and customer experience at British Airways, who had stressed the importance of trying to track the real value of the airline's new marketing activity, in terms of financial returns to the business over the next three to five years.

Parker noted this is an approach agencies are increasingly familiar with and was one Publicis Groupe's MediaVest has been trying to develop both for itself and the agencies clients.

Parker said: "[Post] used the language of a net promoter score, which I think is really valuable... We can start measuring the strength, depth, variety of our relationships with our key media owners, and also we do the same with client service.

"We [at MediaVest] use net promoter as a key measure of our relationship with client service, so I think it's real and I think many people here today are trying to employ that kind of measurement."

Video produced by Georgina Brazier and Sarah Johnson. Follow on Twitter: @BRproducers / Follow Arif Durrani: @DurraniMix

This article was first published on mediaweek.co.uk