Why GroupM Connect’s Ruud Wanck is unfazed by the dawn of AI-led media buying: 'It doesn’t change our role'
Ruud Wanck, the worldwide chief executive of GroupM Connect, is nonplussed by the coming of fixed fee, self service-style agencies, believing – if anything – they can strengthen the group’s proposition.
The WPP executive compared the likes of Danish start-up Blackwood Seven, which give marketers the ability to plan their own media campaigns in real-time through a software service and uses artificial rather than human intelligence to predict such outcomes, to automated financial investment services.
“When automation came in and shares got traded in real-time, a lot of the work was taken over by machines because a lot of the work got done much faster,” he said. “At that point a lot of people asked the banks: ‘Is there going to be a role for you in financial management?’
“Now look where we are. There’s still a massively high demand for consultancy [services] because while you can buy shares yourself online, it doesn’t mean you make the right investment decisions. I firmly believe that for groups like ours, the fact that it gets automated doesn’t change our role. Within that, we may even have an even bigger role in helping clients with in their B2B development and delivery.”
‘Horizontality’
One thing that will continue to be attractive to clients when eyeing up a new media agency pitch is the creativity that an algorithm cannot deliver. Therefore a challenge – but an opportunity - for GroupM is to offer up a package of value-adding creative and the strategic media buying it is known for.
While Wanck believes creativity is “probably becoming more important than it already was” thanks to a minefield of digital “clutter”, GroupM Connect is not interested in completely “closing the loop” between creativity and analytical planning.
“I think it’s more about working together – Sir Martin [Sorrell] calls that horizontality, where the creative, media and research agencies work closely together. A lot of people try to see some sort of tension in that but I don’t believe that tension really exists. They’re just two completely different things. If anything I think [pulling the two together] is more of a cultural challenge than a business challenge.”
Driving results
WPP may have refused to pitch into McDonald’s paid for performance model, however Wanck is slightly more sympathetic to the idea of brand’s asking agencies for straight up results.
“I think there is in general a push in the market towards paid for performance, or at least more ROI-driven campaigns. That’s a logical extension from all the technology being eliminated.
“We know much more about where something is delivered and what the result is going to be. More and more advertisers are asking to have remuneration reflected in those models. It’s not a question of whether to embrace it or not, it’s just something that the market is evolving towards and we need to move with those developments.”