Martin Hall, Auckland University of Technology

The same year The Treaty of Waitangi was signed (1840) New Zealanders were enjoying their very first newspaper, The NZ Gazette published at Port Nicholson. 1861 saw the first publication of the Otago Daily Times, NZ’s longest running daily paper. Newspaper publishing rapidly expanded in the next few years such that by the early 1900’s there were 67 daily papers in existence, many more than the 24 dailies and 2 national Sundays of today. Advertising agencies were born in those days of the late 19th century when they were initially employed by the newspapers to sell advertising space on commission. Charles Haynes (now FCB) appears to have been established in 1891 representing the Wairarapa Daily Times, soon afterwards Ilotts (to become Generator Bates) started up with representation of The Auckland Star and the Otago Daily Times. J. Ingles Wright (to evolve into DDB) was the next one up.

It wasn’t long before advances were being made in printing technology and illustrations started appearing and so designing ads became more demanding and therefore more essential. The shrewd commission selling agents soon realised that an opportunity was beckoning and a service including copywriting and art direction was offered to clients thereby launching advertising agents. Not an awful lot happened to change the status quo for quite some time, cinema flourished as did radio and these two media extended agencies’ media and creative talents and resources.


Television was the catalyst for change in advertising agencies and the media worldwide, test TV broadcasts started in this country in the 1950’s although the BBC had been operating in the UK since pre World War II. By the 1970’s in Europe and North America the traditional advertising agency, consisting primarily of a Media Department, a Creative Department and an Account Service Department, was facing increasingly stiff competition from specialist independent media agencies whose sole function was to plan and buy media as competitively as possible. Several things caused this major change in the environment, not least of which was the big increases in advertising budgets. Add to that rapid developments in media research particularly TV, the erosion of the traditional agency commission system and the globalisation of brands. Now marketers could produce a TVC in say New York and air it in many countries by only using the media buying specialists in the new “shops” at a fraction the cost of paying an agency its full 15%, or whatever, agency commission. Of course this put pressure on clients to take over some of the roles that had typically been the responsibility of the ad. agency, again this has had far reaching affects on the relationship between client with agency.

Meanwhile, in New Zealand we were to wait a few more years before experiencing similar changes. The New Zealand market was to some extent insulated from these developments by the continued protection of the agency commission system which banned rebating to clients. However, by the 1990’s the commission system had been de-regulated and we started to see independent specialist media agencies such as Total Media, Carat (formerly Strategic Media) and M for Media (now Mitchell & Partners) who sold themselves on better buying costs, operating efficiencies and lower commission rates. At around this time in New Zealand and in-line with international trends we started to see agencies “unbundling” their media departments and competing with the “independents”. Media Decisions which became The Media Palace was one of the earlier ones. Setting the media department up as a separate profit centre with its own management meant that its future was no longer absolutely tied to the parent agency. On the one hand, if the client fired the parent agency, in the past media went down with the ship. On the other hand, the new specialist media agency might retain the media side of the business in its own right. Clients had started shopping around the industry for the right agency for the job, meaning that one agency might be appointed for creative, another for dm, another for media, etc. So, the unbundled media agency was now responsible for going out and pitching its own clients. Included in the specialist media agencies’ client list is now other ad. agencies who for one reason or another had decided not to include a media department in their structure.

As the 21st century approached we saw major consolidations of media buying groups and ad. agencies worldwide in order to gain market dominance. Ad agencies were increasingly being appointed on a global basis to service global clients and global brands. These major media buying groups struggled to differentiate themselves based on buying costs and cost efficiencies alone. Emphasis moved towards propriety research and planning tools to provide the competitive edge with a more holistic approach that stresses accountability, ROI, and creative media planning to connect with today’s consumer. Media planners were now facing the challenge of a global market, a highly fragmented media market, tighter margins, new media technologies and a consumer who was media savvy and in control of the remote control not to mention the PVR. Understanding the consumer’s mental fragmentation and how to connect with the consumer in the face of all this media fragmentation was a priority

With these changes has come a new vocabulary, a bit baffling until you get the hang of it – 360 degree planning, media traders, media communication architects, media neutral, media account planners and so on. What we are talking about is a new breed of media person who contribute more directly to the clients’ strategic planning and who thinks beyond the old currency of TARPS, costs per TARP, conventional media, etc. And who takes into account the target audience’s complete range of media experiences to put together a communication plan based on consumer insights that cuts through the clutter to reach the consumer at the right time and in the right place.

This article submitted by
Martin Hall
Programme Leader Diploma in Advertising
Auckland University of Technology
tel 09 917 9999 x 5321
martin.hall@aut.ac.nz