MightyHive chief Pete Kim on the merging of media and creative
It is “extraordinarily important” in today’s environment to merge media and creative, MightyHive CEO Pete Kim told The Drum.
Marketing transformation is requisite but uniquely individual
Media and creative need to be optimized together, he said, not just because of the complexities of the technologies that support omnichannel marketing, but primarily because consumers expect a consistent experience — one that feels like a cohesive conversation with a singular entity.
“Advertisers need to make a transformation over the next few years,” Kim said. “And, we need to redefine the modern marketing services firm.”
Kim plans to do just that now that MightyHive is a part of Sir Martin Sorrell’s firm, S4 Capital. “I’m excited about collaborating with [S4’s] MediaMonks and merging media and creative,” he said. “I see the opportunity to redesign what the marketing services firm of the future should look like. It’s not a blank sheet, but we have more agility than a big company has.”
Marketers today also need agility, so they can support the customer conversations that are happening in real time, Kim told The Drum. It’s difficult for brands and their agencies to hold those conversations seamlessly. “That’s why we need collaboration — so we can seem like one entity for that conversation,” he said.
The need to transform to make that happen is ubiquitous, but how advertisers need to transform is not identical for all of them. Kim calls this the spectrum of control: As advertisers seek the ability to control thousands of simultaneous conversations with individual consumers, they have many options to choose from to make that happen, he said; for example, they may have their own media contracts instead of working with agencies.
Kim likens the spectrum of control — how much is outsourced versus handled in-house — to companies’ work with accounting and law firms: Most companies have accountants and lawyers on staff and also work with accounting and law firms. Similarly, marketers can field an in-house advertising services team that includes media buyers and the like while still working with marketing and media advisory firms.
MightyHive’s goal is to serve as the advisory firm that helps marketers determine where on that spectrum they should land, help them visualize the journey they need to take to transform, and then accompany them on the journey.
“Partnering with someone like Sir Martin Sorrell and S4 is about accelerating the growth of MightyHive,” to facilitate those comprehensive client relationships,” Kim said. “We wouldn’t be able to grow as fast as [otherwise]. And a smaller, agile firm has an advantage in inventing the future.”
Read more from CMOs’ points of view in The Drum’s Marketer of the Future section