MEDIA owners and companies need to start investing in their products again or risk losing the confidence of advertisers as they return in strength to the sector after the worst advertising recession in years, a leading media buyer has warned.
Universal McCann regional chief Henry Tajer said that after a year in which budgets were slashed and costs paired back, media owners needed to restore confidence in the $12 billion advertising market by putting money back into their main products and to keep innovating.
''We are keeping an eye on the dollars they plan to invest back into their products,'' said Mr Tajer, whose clients include the federal government and Coles.
''I've not seen any major investment but we are still working through the current financial year. By July 1 we really would expect to see [plans]. We have a very strong market and their plans should be in progress at the moment.''
Mr Tajer said while he ''understood'' that media owners spent the past year grappling with a recession in the advertising industry - the consensus is that the market shrank by 7 to 8 per cent in 2009 - media owners needed to demonstrate to advertisers that they were launching products, adopting new strategies and working to come up with more and different solutions for advertisers.
''If there are signs that they are putting investment back then that'll give the market confidence. After all, it is a two-way street,'' Mr Tajer said.
OMD joint national managing director Leigh Terry said his company had not witnessed media owners cutting back areas that ''generate revenue'' - that is, the sales teams that put together deals for advertisers. He said that as the market returned, he expected to see ad sales targets to be revised upwards which, in turn, could lead to investment down the line.
But media owners rejected Mr Tajer's comments, saying that investment had not stopped. Seven chief sales and digital officer James Warburton cited as evidence to the contrary the launch last year of its advertorial unit, Infocus. ''I agree with his sentiment in that we need to invest … But we continued to invest in one of the worst years ever.''
