Working out exactly what someone does from their title is ever more difficult in today’s corporate environment and adland is one of the main offenders (chief people officer often means head of redundancies for example.)
You might think that the chief media officer at a huge media agency was the CEO but that’s not the case at WPP Media where the CEO remains Brian Lesser and Laura Ryan (below) is joining from IPG’s Orion (does it still exist under Omnicom?) in the above role.
Her job, WPP says, is to “oversee WPP Media’s global investment, partnerships, media management and activation teams, bringing media, clients and technology closer together.”
Orion was actually a barter company, thinking nothing of trading a boatload of bananas for airtime somewhere and, at once time, headed by a refugee from the CIA, which rather added to barter’s smoky reputation.
So, on the face of it, it looks as though Ryan’s new job and its big name means WPP is doubling down on so-called principal media buying, that is carving up the profit on bought inventory with clients willing to play the game.
Media agencies have to make their money somewhere as big clients agree deals on rates of commission incapable of delivering a profit. Media nevertheless now accounts for most of the ad holding companies’ profit, often now creative is thrown in for essentially nothing to land big media deals. Barter and its various offshoots – described by IPG on LinkedIn as a “a global media company that unlocks client value through innovative solutions. Media Buying, Barter, Advertising and Financial Solutions” – is clearly pretty high up on WPP Media’s agenda, hence Ryan’s title.
It won’t escape notice that Richard Foster’s $100m court action currently winding its way through the New York courts involves just such actvity.
