Sep 2, 2021/LinkedIn/John Dunne — Today marks the official launch of The Paradox Report, a research study on the big themes that affect the Irish media and marketing sector. It includes new research, data that has never been previously published, analysis and expert commentary on a range of important topics of relevance to Irish marketers.
The sector is undergoing its biggest changes in living memory, through a combination of factors including the fall-out from Covid-19, the race to digital, more empowered consumers and upcoming changes to how digital advertising campaigns are run.
While marketers have never had so many tools and media choices at their disposal, they also face unprecedented challenges and complexities. It’s a paradox – and that’s why we choose this as the title for our research, the first of its kind to be published in Ireland.
Our big message is the strategies and models of the past are not a fit for the future. Instead, marketers need to embrace change and to plan, execute and measure holistically – and with a greater deal of flexibility and accountability than in the past.
The main themes
The Paradox Report covers:
- Marketing transformation: the seven big factors that are driving change
- Ten-year channel analysis: our research shows that digital share of advertising spend has grown from 17% to 53%, at the expense of traditional media. Press has been most affected,
- Impact of demise of cookies: our research among media buyers indicates that Google and Facebook will be the main beneficiaries.
- Agency market shares: Irish advertising agency research from Olivier Gauthier of COMvergence which has never previously been published and which shows that Core is the market leader.
- Advertising pitch activity: Lidl, Diageo and Fáilte Ireland were the top three large advertising accounts to be the subject of pitch processes in 20
- KPIs: measuring what’s meaningful and avoiding ‘vanity metrics’
- Pricing models: the shift from from traditional ‘time and materials’ or ‘output’ models to Performance-Related Incentive Payments (PRPs)
- Smart buying: how businesses should buy marketing and digital services and technologies, based our experience of working with clients as independent advertisers for pitch processes
Expert commentary
The Paradox Report includes a series of contributions on academics, practitioners and thought leaders including:
- Mary Lambkin of UCD School of Business on how marketers can win the support of the C-Suite
- Gordon Newman of Life Style Sports’ on how to achieve omnichannel success
- Colin Gordon on the role of research in marketing
- Colin Lewis on future client/agency models
- Steven Roberts and Robert Webster on avoiding privacy risks and what the priorities should in a ‘cookiless’ world
- Peter McPartlin on accessing scarce marketing talent
