It’s my wife’s birthday next week and I’m taking her to ‘The Fat Duck’ to celebrate.

Nothing particularly unusual there you might think – but when it came to choosing where to take her I struggled to find somewhere I hadn’t been before.

This isn’t me showing off or being some kind of Michael Winner wannabe – but I, like many people in the media industry have been fortunate enough in the past to be invited to lunch at some of the country’s top restaurants. 

For years relationships in the media industry have been built and trading deals secured, over tables at eateries such as Claridge’s, Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons and The Ivy.  Planners and Buyers of all levels have been spoilt and schmoozed into spending money with media owners based on the size of their hosts expenses budget and not necessarily the quality of the product they are selling or the results that it might deliver for their clients.

However, this traditional way of doing business is looking increasingly archaic as a new kid on the digital block is putting performance ahead of buying power.

The figures released this week by the IAB and PwC showed that in 2010 display advertising encouragingly grew by 27%.  A number of reasons were cited for this growth – including the usual reasons of audience growth, broadband speed increasing and bigger advertising budgets.

However, if like us you have been following the rise of DSPs (demand-side platforms) you are no doubt aware that this growth has actually been massively fuelled by the uptake of the latest addition to the digital media planning & buying armoury – real time bidding (RTB). Real-time and data-driven technologies are now affording advertisers greater targeting and media efficiencies – putting more emphasis on data than ever before.  Essentially this means that media buyers need to become lighter on their feet and more responsive to change.  Digital is a medium that is constantly evolving – and it is important that the people who work in the industry evolve with it.

Navigate Digital have been monitoring these changes to the industry for some time now and have established a dialogue with some key players in this space.  I’m pleased to say that relationships with these suppliers have been based on a hunger to understand how it can benefit our clients and fill a knowledge gap and not around filling our stomachs.

Agencies that are constrained to archaic trading deals and attempt to fob clients off with media plans that look the same for each campaign they run will soon be found out.  No longer can big agencies hide behind their apparent ability to buy media cheaper than smaller agencies because what is now apparent, is that in the current digital media landscape it is increasingly about what you know and not necessarily who you know.

Don’t get me wrong, having a healthy working relationship with key vendors is important and the proliferation of DSP’s certainly won’t see the demise of the media lunch or need for personal relationships – but forward thinking agencies and clients now realise that campaign data and not lunch dates are becoming more important in determining where and when media budgets (especially for direct response focused campaigns) should be spent.