Profile: GroupM's Andrew Meaden heralds a new approach to media

While many media agencies are busy emphasising their added value offerings or their digital capabilities, Meaden is adamant that the industry should be sticking to what it does best.

“Nobody wants to talk about trading,” he says. “When you meet agencies, they typically want to talk about planning, econometrics, digital, activation, creativity and things like that. But the reality of the situation is that the bulk of what we do is still about trading, it is still about buying media, it is still about buying TV. If you look at any agency, I bet you 80 per cent of their income is based around buying television media.”

In fact, Meaden says one of the things that attracted him to his new role - he took up the position in February this year - was the chance to take the trading business, modernise it and make sure the GroupM agencies were giving clients better value in that area. “It is not particularly glamorous, so recently it is something that hasn’t really been invested in,” he adds.

This is not to say that Meaden is unwelcoming to the potential of digital in the media mix. He is, for example, especially passionate about the role that online video is going to play, particularly in China where the sector is highly competitive and is targeting a huge audience.“For us, it is something we need to integrate because clients want to understand that and want to consider that in the same way,” he says. “Any brands that are interested in that young upscale audience need to understand video in order to use it effectively.”

However, Meaden is also careful to frame online video in a more traditional context. “I still think it is very content led, so it is like TV in that if you don’t have the right content on it then you can’t attract people. It is basically just another way of receiving TV.”

Meaden’s appointment at group level follows almost two decades in agency roles, most recently as head of North Asia for Mindshare. It will be the first time he has moved away from the day-to-day handling of clients. “GroupM is about leveraging the benefits of the different agencies for clients but often in a more behind the scenes way,” he says.

“GroupM is a sort of power behind the throne I guess, pulling all that spend together and making sure that the agencies get the best value. In a way, the agencies are like my clients, ensuring they can buy media in the most effective way.”

Meaden certainly has media in his blood. He started his career in 1991 as a buyer at Zenith. In 1993, he joined Ogilvy Media where his contemporaries included the likes of current boss at GroupM Mark Patterson and the new Asia CEO of Aegis Nick Waters. His move to Asia came in 1997, first with Y&R in Vietnam before returning to the WPP fold with Mindshare.

During his time in Asia, he has seen the media industry go through many shifts, the latest of which relates closely to his back to basics approach. “If you look at all big pitches over last year or so, certainly the ones we were involved in, they were all trading related. Clients were not looking for better strategic planning or how well the agency handles digital, they were looking to save money on the bottom line.”

The price issue in particular is one that agencies have had to adapt to, although Meaden wonders whether some of the more recent high-profile wins will be sustainable in the long term. “I think a lot of agencies will find it very difficult,” he says.

“They have come in offering huge discounts but the reality is that markets are still inflating. TV stations have not decided to sell their airtime at a 10 per cent discount, so where is that saving going to come from? It will be very interesting to see what happens.”

He points to the rising use of auditors as a clear sign that many clients are becoming more serious about ensuring they get value from trading. “I remember two years ago, we probably had one or two clients who were getting audited. Now it is nudging up closer to 50 per cent. They want to make sure that promises are being delivered on.”

The question of price inevitably leads to the issue of transparency, which has been hugely challenging for the industry, especially in Meaden’s former stomping ground of China. The use of brokers (essentially middlemen between the media owner and the media agency) has in many cases led to problematic situations - at best brokers not delivering on their promises and at worst complicated financial relationships between brokers and the media owners.

Meaden points out that a number of agencies are still using a lot of broker air time. “But again, the level of control that gives you and what that means for clients is often really problematic because brokers buy inventory basically that the TV station finds hard to sell.”

The good news is that the situation is getting better, with Meaden pointing out: “The big TV channels in China typically use far less of the brokers. I think a lot of brokers will move out of the industry in the future as they are seeing better opportunities for their cash-rich proposition in real estate and the like. It will be the more professional ones who stay around and try to offer viable agency offerings.”

This last point could be very interesting for the future direction of the industry. As early arrivals in Asia, WPP and Mindshare were able to build an industry-leading position. Recently, though, Omnicom, Publicis and Aegis have aggressively expanded their regional media businesses. But Meaden also sees a new kind of competitor, those former brokers that are starting to offer more holistic agency services. “This is still quite limited, but it is naïve to presume that none of these become realistic competition in the next few years. I don’t think it will always be OMG and other multinationals that we will be looking at.”

Andrew Meaden CV

1991 Media buyer, Zenith Media, London
1993 Media planner, Ogilvy Media, London
1997 General manager, Dentsu, Young and Rubicam, Vietnam
2000 General manager, Mindshare Japan
2005 CEO, Mindshare China
2008 CEO, Mindshare North Asia
2010 Head of trading, GroupM Asia-Pacific

Here is what Andrew had to say In Media's recent podcast exploring the issues and new developments within Television.

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This article was originally published as part of the 6 May 2010 issue of Media.