MediaCom hosted industry leaders and media partners respectively at the agency’s annual media-focussed event. This year’s event was bigger and better as the agency welcomed Johannesburg-based media owners to showcase how MediaCom can drive growth whilst creating meaningful partnerships by putting 'People First'.

MediaCom’s teams set up interactive activations in the spirit of future technological advancements. Over the course of the day, guests were taken through an array of immersive experiences that showcased MediaCom’s knowledge of client business and eagerness to drive media excellence in the South African landscape.

The main point of the day was to demonstrate how technology, creativity and people integrate to form an integral part of media investment and distribution in the market.

Consumers are at the core of it all

Humans play a key role in the digital realm of the future. Whether you’re a media buyer, media associate or brand, we all need to think about the people that consume the content that you develop.

Campaigns have to deepen the relationship between you and your audience and put people first in the development of creatives. The most interesting challenge is not how to best tackle specific social media platforms or how best to leverage the technologies we have, but how best to be as human as possible across all consumer touchpoints.

By implementing MediaCom’s overall strategy of 'People First', attendees were able to learn more about advertising strategies of top global brands in MediaCom’s portfolio and how they have disrupted their respective markets with innovative media executions.

The main take away from their presentations were: if media partners and brands understand people’s needs, and invest innovatively based on those insights, they’ll be able to deliver better results.

Innovate or become irrelevant

The theme of the day touched on a few critical developments in the technology sector that can have an invaluable effect on an agency. The media industry lives in an ever-evolving realm that is part of solutions-driven communication. Reaching specific goals mainly rely on how well agencies, and media buyers alike, adapt and apply innovative solutions.

With the rapid rate that technology is advancing, it has become increasingly clear that it’s one of the most disruptive forces in advertising right now. Media strategists are evolving into data strategists. Agencies now have to effectively interpret detailed consumer data to understand customer needs on a personal level and develop data-led media plans.

Agencies of the future will have to understand connectivity across various ad technologies, which will help them ensure that campaigns are set up for success, mainly by skilfully interpreting data to unearth insights and optimise campaigns. All this bearing in mind that Agencies Of The Future should be here today.

A future-proof strategy

To future-proof an agency, media specialists had access to various teams to advise them on a variety of technological advancements, including artificial intelligence, automated advertising bookings (that are programmatic), machine learning and algorithms and consumer data collection.

For more information, visit www.mediacom.com. You can also follow MediaCom on Facebook or on Twitter.