Media Buying Briefing: ‘You can’t legislate uncertainty’: two agencies rethink return-to-office plans after employee pushback

Meanwhile, Andrew Bailey, North American CEO of independent agency The&Partnership (in which WPP holds a minority stake), had been quietly encouraging his people back into the office since last October and implemented a voluntary three days in office, two remote since Memorial Day. To his surprise, a majority of his staffers did so willingly, up to 75% of the staff, he said. But he also found a certain segment resisted.

When looking into it, Bailey discovered that staffers in more collaborative roles (creative directors, account people and junior project managers, for example) were happy to come in, needing the interaction with colleagues that inspires innovation and fresh thought. The more reluctant segment were mostly media, IT and data/analytics staff, who “don’t have as much interaction with colleagues that requires face-to-face contact,” said Bailey. 

Working to Bailey’s advantage was the extra office space The &Partnership opened in its Soho (New York) facilities eight months before the pandemic started. That extra space has been used to space people out for a safer, in-office working environment. But Bailey said the focus now is to update in-office technology — for example, he’s looking into installing new Zoom-like tech that allows each person in a boardroom meeting to be seen individually rather than a single camera focused on the entire room. “Our clients won’t be going into the office before October or maybe January. So we need to accommodate them even if we’re in the office,” he said.

The bottom line for both CEOs is, so long as the business continues to grow they’ll stick with the flexible course. “This was one of the first times I found where the best way to provide people assurance is to provide them maximum flexibility,” said Lowenthal. 

Perhaps Rishad Tobaccowala, former Publicis Groupe executive and current industry deep thinker, put it best in a June installment of his “The Future Does Not Fit Into the Containers of the Past” column: “The jigsaw of return cannot be solved elegantly with every piece fitting, but if people see the big picture you are trying to solve for, they are more likely to accept or resent less whatever decisions are being made. How the decisions are made may be as important as what decisions are made.”

Color by numbers

Although some schools are already back in session (either virtually or in-person), some don’t begin the fall semester until after Labor Day. AdImpact, a SaaS platform that tracks and analyzes ad spend data, found that from early June up to the week of Aug. 8, a total of 304,630 back-to-school ads have run across media, led by retailers, which accounted for 109,700. Among retailers, the top school-focused advertiser was Kohl’s, with 48,800 total ads.

Takeoff & landing

• Consumer insights platform Disqo raised $85 million in Series B financing, the company announced last week, including investments (and seats on the board) from Sageview Capital and March Capital, among other investors.
• Wavemaker named Sharb Farjami, most recently the CEO of News Corp’s Storyful, its new COO, reporting to Americas CEO Louisa Wong. Farjami was also once COO of MindShare in Australia, a fellow GroupM agency. 
• Out of home (OOH) ad revenue grew 38 percent to $2 billion in Q2 2021over Q2 2020, according to the Out of Home Advertising Association of America, with digital OOH leading the growth at just under 80 percent growth over Q2 2020.

Direct quote

“How to use [the acronym OTT]: Don’t. Repeat: Do not use this acronym. Please. OTT was fine for a time, but that time has passed … OTT has become synonymous with streaming, so let’s just say streaming instead. That way our friends and family members will know what the hell we’re talking about.”

— Digiday senior media editor Tim Peterson, in his latest Future of TV Briefing, on learning TV’s new lexicon.

Speed reading

• Digiday marketing reporter Kimeko McCoy spoke with several media buyers about how up-and-coming social media platforms are starting to challenge Facebook, Instagram and YouTube. 
• Variety explained how NBCU wants to build a new measurement system that challenges Nielsen’s longtime dominance and sudden vulnerability.  
• CNET takes a look at how TikTok is looking to expand its video limits to five, possibly 10 minutes in length.